Business Case Studies

Executives in every kind of organisation – large and small, private and public, for-profit and not-for-profit – are using operational research (OR) to unlock the value in their data, model complex systems, and make better decisions with less risk. Whether OR is used to inform high-level strategy or improve day-to-day operations, the results speak for themselves:

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Traffic modelling at the Port of Dover

With freight traffic expected to increase by 40%, the Port of Dover partnered with the University of Kent Business School to model current and future traffic flows with the aim of reducing queues, improving resource use and saving funds.

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How OR helps kidney patients in the UK

Algorithms developed by University of Glasgow researchers led to more than 200 extra kidney transplants between 2008 and 2017 – saving the NHS around £52 million over a ten year period.

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Resource management in hospital surgeries

One of the leading hospitals in the USA, the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Centre in Los Angeles, has used operational research to effectively manage costs at its operating room suites, saving millions of dollars a year.

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Optimising waste flows

Italian company Herambiente S.p.A. applied OR to its core business and created ‘OptiWasteFlow’, a Decision Support System (DSS) to improve accuracy of the planning process and obtain more cost-efficient solutions with remarkable returns in terms of profit.

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Optimising efficiency in the National Police Air Service

The National Police Air Service used operational research modelling techniques to optimise the location of bases, response times and use of its aircraft to achieve a 14% budgetary saving.

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Scheduling heat treatments with SOLV

Faced with an extremely complex scheduling process at their heat treatment facility in Trollhättan, Sweden, managers at GKN Aerospace turned to the OR community for help. What resulted was a business-transforming tool.

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