Comment on "Corporate Planning and Operational Research"

1979 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
M. F. Cantley
Keyword(s):  
Operational Research ◽  
Corporate Planning

Operational research within the National Coal Board

1977 ◽  
Vol 287 (1346) ◽  
pp. 467-486 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Operational Research ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Management Team ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Corporate Planning ◽  
The Third ◽  
Underground Gasification ◽  
Planning Models ◽  
Management Decision Making

The Operational Research Executive of the N.C.B. was first established with one appointment in 1948 and has steadily grown, both in the size of the group - now over 100 scientists strong - and in the range of the work undertaken. One essential feature of its success is the organization of the group as a federation of small teams, each of which works on a continuing basis with a corresponding management team. Equally important is the formal check-back system which analyses the group’s overall achievements each year. Three major studies are described. The first traces the development of a suite of corporate planning models as part of the work of the team providing aids and advice to planners at headquarters. The second describes an ‘old fashioned’ piece of O.R. - the assessment of the future potentialities of the underground gasification of coal. The third discusses a year’s achievements of the team serving one Goal Board area. It is the N.C.B. experience that a scientific service of this kind, dedicated to the Board’s service, but independent of departmental pressures within it, is an invaluable aid to management decision making.

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