Operational Research and Corporate Planning in Railway Management

1979 ◽  
Vol 30 (10) ◽  
pp. 849
Author(s):  
D. G. Stevenson ◽  
G. Georgiades

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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