University of Arkansas Ranks Highly in Contributions to Operations Research

Photo by Kris Katrosh In the Department of Industrial Engineering, faculty and students use operations research tools to improve the way businesses, organizations and consumers make decisions.

The University of Arkansas was ranked 19th among U.S. institutions for its contributions to operations research practice literature in the 11th Rothkopf Rankings, which were published May 25 in the journal Interfaces.

The journal is published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, and it publishes manuscripts that focus on the practice of operations research and management science and their impact on organizations. The article assesses practice-oriented operations research between 2009 and 2015. A total of 318 practice-oriented articles from 111 US schools and 106 non-U.S. schools from 33 countries were analyzed.

At the U of A, operations research is a focus of several faculty in the Department of Industrial Engineering. In this field, researchers use mathematical and analytical methods to study and improve decision making processes. Using statistical analyses, mathematical modeling, computer simulation and other tools, operations research investigators make recommendations on a wide range of situations, including the design of transportation networks, the organization of supply chains in the healthcare industry and the scheduling of breast cancer screenings.

"I am very pleased that our faculty's efforts have been recognized for our contributions to the practice literature in operations research," said Ed Pohl, head of the department and holder of the Twenty-First Century Professorship in Engineering. "Our operations research faculty have always been diligent and creative in their use of data to improve the systems and processes around us, and it is their efforts that are reflected in these rankings."