ABSTRACT
As per Maltz [1], Simeon-Denis Poisson developed and used the Poisson distribution in the 1830s to analyze inherent variations in jury decisions and to calculate the probability of conviction in French courts. There have been many other initiatives prior to the 1930s similar to Poisson’s, highlighting the use of quantitative techniques for decision support. However, it is widely acknowledged that operations research (OR) started as a practice in the 1930s. It owes its origin to the needs of Great Britain during World War II to enhance the deployment effectiveness of combat resources and the support facilities. Its subsequent growth is credited to the achievements during the war period. The year 1937 can be considered to be the base year as this was the year the term operational research (OR) was coined [2]. It is not even a century old and compared to other functional areas (such as production, marketing, financial management, or human resource development) or to scientific disciplines (like mathematics, physics, or chemistry) it is a very young field. Yet, there are many practitioners of OR who began questioning its utility, applicability [3], and even its survivability within four decades of its existence. Fildes and Ranyard [4] have documented that 96% of Fortune 500 companies had in-house OR groups in 1970 but the numbers dwindled by the 1980s.
