Historical Development of Operations Research and It's Features

As the global market becomes fiercely competitive, Operations Research has gained significance in strategic business decisions. The growth of global markets and the resulting increase in competition have lightened the need for Operations Research. Today it is one of the popular decision science tools used by profit and nonprofit organizations. Operational Research as a new field started in the British Military in the second half of the 1930s as a response to the mobilization of the German air force. But it is starting point based on Archimedes’s studies. Archimedes collected empirical data, analyzed those data using mathematics and used the results to doing equipment and formulated method for countering the Roman siege to Syracuse in 213 B.C. He can be considered the first operations analyst and his studies can be accepted starting point of operations research. Taylorism is often mentioned as a precursor of Operations Research and it is a scientific origin of operations research. After Second World War, Operations Research is developed as academic discipline in academic and business environment. Many new Operations Research techniques are developed by distinguished scientists and applied at many different fields by them. The paper aims to outline historical development of Operations Research as a starting point, a scientific origin, a new field and an academic discipline in some countries like Turkey of the world. Besides, in this study it’s given eleven different definition of operations research and by those definitions it’s eleven different features which is not considered in Turkish literature is explained.