Operations Research
in Italy:
Alive and Well, here too
by Giorgio Gallo, President of the Italian OR Society (AIRO)
"O.R. Around the World: Alive and Well, yet different", is the title that introduces a series of articles on the state of Operations Research in last April's issue of ORMS Today. Perhaps it would be excessive to use the same adjectives, alive and well, to describe Operations Research in Italy, but it seems to me that there are good reasons to be optimistic about the future of this field even in our country.
Operations Research in Italy has a long history. It was born in the 60s, at the beginning in a business setting. It was a period characterised by great enthusiasm, following on the waves of operations research successes in the Anglo-Saxon world. Many large firms set up significant Operations Research offices. But as often happens, the great enthusiasm was succeeded by great disappointments. It would be interesting to study this phase in our field to understand what were the causes and processes that brought about the complete disappearance of OR in firms during the course of the 70s. Actually, more than the disappearance of OR there was a disappearance of the professional figure of Operations Researcher: a certain number of techniques of Operations Research continued to be used. But Operations Research is not limited to its techniques.
"Operations Research (or Manage-ment Science, or OR/MS) is the science that (1) observes the phenomena of operations (or functions) consisting of people, material, artefacts of technology and society, and money, these operations being given coherence by an objective, a need, or a problem, and (2) gives due consideration to the known, unknown, and implicit perceptions of the human actors in these operations. It represents these phenomena in models (or theories), and manipulates them to create understandings of the phenomena. With the intent of achieving desired ends, OR/MS workers then apply the results to problems in the reality from which the observations emerged." (H.J. Mises, Interfaces, Vol.27, n.6, 1997). From this definition, which I substantially agree with, emerges the richness and complexity of the role of the operations researcher. A richness and complexity that requires specific professional positions. These professional positions have developed in the Anglo-Saxon world, thanks also to a propulsive and supportive role of the university. The same has not occurred in Italy. Operations Research has instead migrated from the business setting to the academic one, where it has had a notable growth, even with all the problems inherent in a cross-disciplinary field. The role of Italian researchers in the field is evidenced by the numerous works that appear every year in the best scientific journals; in some areas, you can even speak of an "Italian school".
This shift of Operations Research towards academia has meant that out of all the richness of Operations Research activity, the aspect that has been preferred has been the one that is most susceptible to formal treatment, and thus scientifically gratifying, that is, the study and analysis of algorithms and theoretical properties of the problems (obviously well-formulated problems and thus necessarily abstract). It should be said however, and here we can explain the optimism expressed in the introduction, that this academic development, by way of the creation of a substantial fund of solid knowledge and competence and the insertion of substantial Operations Research content in the educational background of various professional figures, has created the conditions for a new growth in Italian Operations Research. In addition, there is a growing attention in this same academic world, both in research and in teaching, toward modelling and applications.
This is from a supply point of view. But even from a demand point of view, even though more slowly, something is changing. This is indicated by the growing, though still limited presence, of the company component in the life of AIRO and on the occasion of its Annual Conference. It is demonstrated by the interest that we have observed over the last years by the business world toward the initiatives that AIRO organises. There is in any case much to do in this area, considering that despite some interesting exceptions, Italian firms are not very willing to invest in research and face with adequate resources the challenge of innovation in production and management.
Prof. Giorgio Gallo
Università di Pisa
Dipartimento di Informatica
Corso Italia 40
I-56125 Pisa (Italy)
Tel: +39 50 887214
Fax: +39 50 88 7226
gallo@di.unipi.it
presidente@airo.org
This article has been published in the AIROnews n°3/99, and is part of an AIRO initiative taken after the meeting of national ORS Presidents during the EURO Conference in Barcelona, July 1997.