Uncertainties in operations research

Expert InsightsPublished 1960

A discussion of the uncertainties faced by operations researchers in determining a preferred strategy. The job of the operations researcher is to find, or invent, within the constraints, some better pattern of adjusting to an uncertain world, or by taking costs and payoffs into account, to buy information to reduce the uncertainty. The author is skeptical of general-purpose solutions to the problems of making good decisions for uncertain contingencies. He indicates that a shift is necessary from searching for the best way to choose between two contingently unsatisfactory answers to searching for a better answer. The uncertainties involved in military problems have their counterparts and analogues in business and in everyday life.

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Uncertainties in operations research. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1960. https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1959.html.
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