The book contains four similarly sized parts. Part 1will define the field of Management Science and lay the foundations of Management Science (MS). It will give an overview of the history of the topic. Part 2 will describe the analysis toolbox used by the MS professional and contain topics such as Multi-Methodology, problem structuring techniques and analysis techniques. Part 3 will look at the key practical skills that OR graduates lack. This part will draw heavily on part 1 and 2. Part 4 will give a brief overview of the current state of the OR profession. It will outline the current knowledge about the reflective practitioner to give guidance to the OR practitioner. It will also look at the ethics in an OR context and the future for the profession.
Book Details:
- Author: Terry Williams
- ISBN: 9780470026649
- Year Published: 2008
- Pages: 342
- BISAC: BUS042000, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Management Science
About the Book and Topic:
The book contains four similarly sized parts. Part 1will define the field of Management Science and lay the foundations of Management Science (MS). It will give an overview of the history of the topic. Part 2 will describe the analysis toolbox used by the MS professional and contain topics such as Multi-Methodology, problem structuring techniques and analysis techniques. Part 3 will look at the key practical skills that OR graduates lack. This part will draw heavily on part 1 and 2. Part 4 will give a brief overview of the current state of the OR profession. It will outline the current knowledge about the reflective practitioner to give guidance to the OR practitioner. It will also look at the ethics in an OR context and the future for the profession.
The Operational Research / Management Science (OR/MS) profession is growing in strength worldwide. There are many OR/MS Masters and Undergraduate courses teaching OR/MS techniques, with textbooks to support them (either on individual techniques or lower-level portfolio textbooks on a range of techniques). The emphasis both in the market place and in pedagogy has moved much more towards a vocational view of OR/MS. There has been recognition that learning techniques is useless unless they are embedded within the skills and expertise of applying OR/MS within real-life and actual problems. There are some textbooks on how to be a consultant. However these are general management consultancy books. They give a good general guidance but do not deal with the specific problems of OR/MS.
The author has previously published with Wiley. Terry Williams is well known in the OR field and is currently a joint Editor of the Journal of the Operational Research Society. He is a fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), fellow of the OR Society, a chartered Mathematician and a certified Project Management Professional.
About the Author
Terry Williams is Professor of Management at Southampton University. He has over 25 years experience in the Mangement Science / Operational Research (MS / OR) field. He was previously the Head of the Management Science Department at Strathclyde University. He has degrees from Oxford (a 1st in Mathematics) and Birmingham (MSc, PhD) Universities. After studying at Oxford and Birmingham he lectured at Strathclyde University in Operational Research before joining Engineering Consultants YARD (now BAe) where he worked for 9 years developing Project Risk Management and as Risk Manager for major projects. He re-joined Strathclyde University in 1992 and continued his research and consultancy modelling on major projects, particularly as one of a team supporting multi-million dollar post-project Delay and Disruption claims in Europe and North America. As well as Project Risk Management, much of his research/consultancy at Strathclyde centred around a team developed to support major post-project litigation claims (with Eden, Ackermann and later Howick) which took part in a number of very large claims. In 2005 he joined Southampton University as Professor of Management Science. Professor Williams is Editor of the Journal of the Operational Research Society. He is a frequent conference speaker, and has published widely in many academic and professional journals and books. He is MAPM, PhD and CMath.