A Personal Perspective on Operations Research

In this presentation, I will try to sketch the present status of Operations Research and Management Science which I have gleaned from my own experience. It is said in Japan that OR/MS was an excellent tool for managers up to the early 70\u27s, but that in recent years it has not been utilized so widely. In addition, there seems to be a big gap between academics and business circles regarding the use of OR/MS and the gap is becoming bigger. Many people see this gap as a crisis for OR/MS.Firstly, I will explain several causes of this gap, emphasizing the importance of tight cooperation between models, algorithms and applications which, I think, constitute a kind of troika in OR/MS. Then I will briefly survey models, algorithms and applications of OR/MS. Finally, after emphasizing the role of optimization, I will talk about my personal view on the future development of OR/MS.A Plenary Speech at the Third Conference of the Association of APORS (Asian-Pacific Operational Research Societies within IFORS) on July 26th, 1994, Fukuoka, Japan