Fire Company Relocation and the Future of Applied Operations Research

This article is based on a talk given at the 1988 TIMS/ORSA meeting in Washington, D.C., about developments since the 1974 Lanchester Prize was awarded to P. J. Kolesar and W. E. Walker in 1974, for a paper that described an algorithm for dynamically repositioning available fire companies in response to changing patterns of availabilities. The life history of that algorithm motivates a vision for the future of the applied side of the OR profession.