Operations Research Techniques: A Longitudinal Update 1973–1988

Questionnaires have been sent to Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) members at five-year intervals over the past 15 years (1973, 1978, 1983, 1988). The most recent set of questionnaires (1988) indicates what operations research (OR) educators and practitioners believe are the quantitative techniques needed for a proper foundation in OR. The results show some change since the first questionnaire (1973). Three quantitative techniques stand out as consistently believed to be the most important: math programming, statistics, and simulation. Other techniques vary in relative importance. Practitioners indicate the use of a more diverse set of techniques than educators.