West Churchman and Operations Research: Case Institute of Technology, 1951–1957

West Churchman, his philosophy, and his ideas contributed to the formation of the Case Institute of Technology operations research group. He helped to (1) establish the first graduate program in OR, (2) formulate the philosophy of practice-oriented OR education, and (3) conduct OR conferences and short courses for industry. He (4) published the first textbook on industrial OR, (5) assisted in recruiting multi-disciplinary OR faculty, and (6) organized faculty-student-sponsor OR teams: the Case OR model for problem solving. Many successful OR academic institutions and industrial organizations practice today what West preached to us over 35 years ago.