Читать книгу Effective Methods and Transportation Processes Management Models at the Railway Transport. Textbook - Vadim Shmal - Страница 4

Tendencies of globalization of the economy predetermine the ever-increasing attention of science to the issues of organization and management.

The rapid development of informatization of technological processes, the complication of technology, the expansion of the scale of activities, the introduction of automated and intelligent control systems in all areas of practice – all this leads to the need for a scientific analysis of complex purposeful processes in terms of their structure and organization. Science is required to provide guidance on the optimal (correct) management of such processes.

The needs of practice have brought to life special scientific methods, which are usually combined under the general name «Operations Research».

Operations research refers to the use of mathematical, quantitative methods to justify decisions in all areas of purposeful human activity. Operations research is a kind of mathematical «application» to the future, which saves effort, time and material resources.

The more complex and expensive the organized event is, the less permissible «strong-willed» decisions are in it and the more important are scientific methods that allow us to assess the consequences of each decision in advance, discard unacceptable options in advance and recommend the most successful ones, allowing us to establish whether the information we have is sufficient for the correct choice of solution, and, if not, what information needs to be additionally obtained and worked out.

It is not uncommon for experience and common sense to rely on experience and common sense when choosing a solution when it comes to an event carried out for the first time. «Experience» in this case is silent, and «common sense» can easily deceive if it does not rely on calculation. Such mathematical calculations, which make it easier for people to make reasonable decisions, are engaged in the science of «operations research».

This is a relatively young science. For the first time this name appeared during the Second World War, in the armed forces of the United States and England.

In the future, the study of operations expanded the scope of application to a variety of sectors of the economy: industry, transport, agriculture, trade, healthcare, consumer services, nature protection.

A distinctive feature of the tasks of operations research is the presence of some kind of activity that pursues a specific goal. Some conditions are set that characterize the environment of the event (in particular, the means that we can dispose of). Within the framework of these conditions, it is required to make such a decision so that the conceived event is, in a sense, the most profitable (or most unprofitable).

In accordance with these general features, general methods for solving such problems are developed, which together constitute the methodological basis and apparatus for the study of operations.

We will give definitions, terminology and basic principles of this science.

An operation is any event (or system of actions) united by a single plan and aimed at achieving a goal.

The operation is a managed event, i.e. it depends on it to choose in one way or another some parameters that characterize its organization. «Organization» here is understood in the broad sense of the word (including the set of technical means used in the operation).

Any decisive choice of parameters that depend on it is called a decision. Decisions can be successful and unsuccessful, reasonable and unreasonable.

Optimal solutions are those that are preferable to others for one reason or another.

The purpose of operations research is a preliminary quantitative justification of optimal solutions.

Sometimes (relatively rarely) as a result of the study, it is possible to indicate a single, strictly optimal solution. Much more often there are cases – to highlight the area of almost equivalent optimal solutions, within which the final choice can be made. The decision-making itself goes beyond the scope of the operations study and falls within the competence of the responsible person, more often a group of persons who are given the right of final choice.

In this choice, they can take into account, along with the recommendations arising from the mathematical calculation, also a number of considerations (quantitative and qualitative) that were not taken into account by this calculation.

The indispensable presence of a person (as the final instance of decision-making) is not canceled even in the presence of a fully automated control system, which, it would seem, makes the optimal decision depending on the situation without human intervention. We must not forget that the very creation of the control algorithm, the choice of one of its possible options, is also a decision, and a very responsible one. With the development of ACS and ITS, human functions are not canceled, but simply move from one elementary level to another, higher.

The parameters that combine to form a solution are called solution elements. For example, if you plan to transport goods, the elements of the solution will be numbers that indicate how much cargo will be sent from each point of origin to each destination, the routes of the goods and the time of delivery.

In the simplest problems of operations research, the number of solution elements can be relatively small. However, in most tasks of practical importance, the number of elements of the solution is very large, which, of course, makes it difficult to analyze the situation and make recommendations. As a rule, any task of operations research results in a whole scientific study performed collectively, which takes a lot of time and requires the mandatory use of computer technology.

In addition to the elements of the solution, which we, within some limits, can dispose of, in any problem of operations research there are also given, «disciplining» conditions that are fixed from the very beginning and cannot be violated. In particular, such conditions include the means (material, technical, technological, human) that we have the right to dispose of, and various kinds of restrictions relying on solutions.