Operations research

Abstract

This chapter discusses Operations Research. Among typical operations research problems are the problems of planning, distribution of reserves and resources, construction of servicing systems, etc. These problems are extremely important. The solution of similar problems frequently provides an answer to the question of what is better—fast but expensive, or slow but inexpensive. These problems are usually considered under the conditions of sufficient a priori information regarding the probability density functions appearing in the problems; frequently, these are unknown. The problem of optimally planning reserves consists of finding the volume of production or purchases, the sequence of supply or the level of reserves necessary to satisfy future demands under minimal losses and expenses. It is clear that extremely large reserves lead to redundancy of material values and demand large expenses for storage facilities. Insufficient reserves may cause interruptions in production. Quantization is considered to be any transformation of a continuous set of values of a function or its arguments into a discrete set. Quantization is used in various communication systems for storage and processing of information, and it is one of the irreplaceable operations when digital computers are employed. © 1971, Academic Press, Inc.