How is OR Used in Today's Military?

OR was first used for military applications during WWII. Over the last 7 decades, how has military OR progressed? What questions are currently being asked? Are there any good resources available for someone interested in applying OR to military applications? Finally, any words of wisdom for someone about to enter the field of military OR?

applications military

asked Nov 28 '09 at 21:53

Chris
33●3

retagged Nov 26 '11 at 15:07

fbahr ♦
1.6k●3●7

8 Answers:

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Here are some applications I know about

Graph theory and algorithms: on the battlefield the communication is done through a complex network of relays and repeaters installed on Humvee, UAV's and stationary bases. There are interesting questions like where to put the repeaters in order to maximize the coverage. That's where information entropy comes in and our old friend Claude Shannon is your guide :)
Logistics: There is an old proverb saying "Amateurs Study Tactics, Professionals Study Logistics" logistics might be a classical military question and what grounded a number of leading troops in the history (a google search brings this up )
Game theory: nuclear disarmament today runs solely on game theoretical grounds. Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's works are the one to study (see his video at TED)
Search and rescue: probabilistic search and rescue theory started in 70s for military; Now with those Somalian pirates it is coming back to live (Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey is actively working on new methods and Dr. Timothy Chung is the guy to talk to)
Social Network Analysis: One interesting question is: if you are working for an intelligence agency which person in a terrorist network you need to recruit in order to get the most useful information. It is obviously not the central guy in the network, or better to say: you cannot recruit bin ladan) that's were SNA comes in. Here at Berkeley we are working on a project called opinion space with the state department it is not to find terrorist networks but to find the voice of the US citizens through a network of ideas, let me know if you have any suggestions)
Optimization, scheduling: I once worked on a defense project for DAC for their scheduling. I am sure they are using optimization in every aspect of their operations
Machine learning: see description for any new weapon for more info :) here are some videos on my own work on target tracking

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answered Nov 29 '09 at 00:12

Mark ♦
3.4k●3●23

edited Nov 29 '09 at 00:40

On the research side, practically anything the folks in the OR department at the Naval Postgraduate School do ends up in practice. See http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Schools/GSOIS/Departments/OR/Faculty/Publications/ORPublications.html for some recent publications.

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answered Nov 29 '09 at 01:38

Michael Trick ♦♦
3.1k●4●18

There's a whole journal devoted to military applications--Military Operations Research, published by the Military Operations Research Society (MORS, http://www.mors.org. INFORMS also has a community devoted to military OR--the Military Applications Society (MAS, http://military-appl.society.informs.org/). If you're going to make a career of it, those are almost certainly worth joining.

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answered Nov 29 '09 at 23:29

Matthew Saltzman 5
51●1

3	"any words of wisdom for someone about to enter the field of military OR?" peace, man! link answered Feb 11 at 04:00 Marco Luebbecke 1.4k●1●8

2	I had read a report about application of OR to Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. You can reach it here: http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2009-04-OR.pdf link answered Nov 29 '09 at 11:33 Ahmet Yükseltürk 196●1●1●5

If you are looking for a "boots-on-the-ground" perspective, I would recommend contacting Greg H. Parlier. He gave a number of very interesting talks on this subject at the Northeast Informs conference. You may find his report "Transforming U.S. Army Logistics: A Strategic “Supply Chain” Approach for Inventory Management" interesting as well.

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answered Feb 14 at 14:57

Carleton
162●2

I teach Operational Logistics in the OR Department at the Naval Postgraduate School. Just in logistics alone we use almost every OR technique, from linear programming, network distribution optimization and shortest path algorithms to simulations and data analysis. Obviously most of the use cases are similar to logistics issues in the commercial world. The big differences are the types of commodities moved, what we move them with, and the demanding environments where operations occur.

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answered Feb 10 at 20:46

ltwalt
21●3

edited Feb 10 at 20:46

The Job Series Code for Operations Research Analysts in the Federal Government is 1515. You can search and apply for this series code at USA Jobs. There is a Navy internship program administered by the Naval Acquisition Career Center (NACC). I am sure the other services have similar programs.

Right now is a great time to look for jobs in DoD dealing with Operations Research. I had 30 1515 analysts working for me at my last command and about half are going to be retirement eligible in the next 5 years.

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answered Feb 14 at 14:39

ltwalt
21●3

edited Feb 14 at 14:42

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Asked: Nov 28 '09 at 21:53

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Last updated: Feb 14 at 14:57

How is OR Used in Today's Military?

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