Operations Research (OR)

I am having a real problem with an Operations Research (OR) class at CSU-DH. Unfortunatlely, the professor (who is also the dean of the MBA on-line program) doesn't seem to have any interest in teaching the course and "assumes" that you already know the course material (if I already knew it, I would probably not have to take the course).

Anyway, this is the only class that I have had any real problems with. All others, including advanced Finance I have aced.

Any suggestions as to a good brick and mortar class in OR/STATS that can be substituted for the CSU-DH program in the Bay Area? I looked around and couldn't find any specific OR/STATS courses - but I did find a few good ones at the UCSC Extension in Business Stats. Do you think this is the same?

Any input or suggestions would be highly appreciated.

W.

 

OR

My MS is in operations research from Florida Tech.

If you can't find any B&M OR courses in the Bay area, Florida Tech offers OR courses via DL.

BTW - In the event you are not using Winston's Operations Research: Applications and Algorithms - I highly recommend it. This is the "bible" in OR. The book comes with Lindo and Lingo which are a godsend for doing optimization problems. I had three OR courses alone from this textbook!

This book explains OR so well that even I was able to teach myself OR. And as for the DL courses from Florida Tech...Anytime I got stuck, my professor was truly an OR expert and got me unstuck every time.

Here is a link for the book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0534209718/103-3694124-2299060?v=glance

 

Thanks for the link. I wonder if I could take OR/STAT from that college and transfer it to CSU-DH.

Does this book provide examples in such areas as portfolio allocation with risk indexes?

I have sent at least 4 emails to the professor. A synopsis of his responses "read the question again". Duhh -- I think with six years of education I can read pretty well, thank you! I find that too many public college professors forget the relationship square.

1. Student
2. Professor (Teacher)
3. Taxpayer
4. Civil servant.

Sorry - I am just venting my frustration with this particular Professor, but I wrote Arnold supporting his initiative to change the tenure laws in California. As a Project Manager, I have to produce each and every day. Why do civil servants get off the hook? If you don't produce, I think you should be fired

(just my two - now off the soapbox - thanks for the help!)

W.

 

Thanks PHD2B. I was looking for a good book on operations research. Found a used one for $11! (New is $127!)

 

I don't see why CSU-DH wouldn't accept coursework from Florida Tech. Florida Tech is RA with a solid reputation.

I can't remember if the book specifically addresses portfolio allocation. I can check the book tomorrow for you when I am back at work.

Here is the link for Florida Tech's DL courses:

http://segs.fit.edu/

 

I don't find any thing in the Winston book about risk indexes, but it may be called something else in the book.
There are sample problems on portfolio optimiztion, quadratic programming and portfolio selection, solving portfolio optimization problems with Excel.
When I took OR last year at KWU, I also bought the student solutions manual from the publisher:
Student Solutions Manual for Winston's Operations Research: Applications and Algorithms, 4th
ISBN 0-534-42360-4, Thomson Learning US , $33.61 including shipping. It was worth the price.

Jim

 

Quadratic Programming and Portfolio Selection

Page 702 has a section titled Quadratic Programming and Portfolio Selection. The first two sentences from section 12.9 of Winston's book read,

"Consider an investor who has a fixed amount of money that can be invested in several investments. It is often assumed that an investor wants to maximize the expected return from his investments (portfolio) while simultaneously ensuring that the risk of his portfolio is small (as measured by the variance of the return earned by the portfolio)."

Is this the type of problem you are doing? Maximizing investments while minimizing risk...

 

Interesting bit of history

On a related note, Winston states on page 704, "The idea of using quadratic programming to determine optimal portfolios comes from Markowitz (1959), and is part of the work that won him the Nobel Prize in Economics."

http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1990/markowitz-autobio.html

 

Hi,

I recommend the following text book:

Optimization in Operations Research by Rardin

it is simply EXCELLENT! you can understand it without the need of any lecturer.

Best wishes

 

Hey - that was mine!

No worries, I ordered another for $12.

My biggest problem with this class is that we have to take word problems and convert them into a format that works with the Management Scientist program.

(X1 + 2X2, X1 >/= 25, etc). Although I am a great engineer, I was never excellent at math. I write and troubleshoot much better than the average engineer which has given me the edge over the years.

Hopefully I can pick this stuff up fast enough to pass the class. The ORG/STAT is a 8-week bridge course. After that, I have a 12 week ORG class. These two classes are pretty much the sticklier for me. Everything else is simply writing and analyzing.

How much OR is really used out there in the real world? I asked my boss (who has his degree in sociology - lol), and he has never heard of the concept.

 

Good question

Good question.

I have been an operations research analyst for the past three years (first as a market analyst and then as a cost analyst) and I have yet to use anything that I learned from my degree! I do a lot of statistical analysis and learning curve theory problems, but not true OR. I love doing optimization problems but I'm not sure if many people actually get to do them outside of academia.

If you need anything else, let me know.

 

Mr. Engineer, that textbook by Winston is truly the Bible for LP. I also had it, and it is a great book. LP is not really about math, but about strategy. You have to find the function to optimize and the constraints. The rest is just tedious, mechanic work. Don´t let it discourage you, read other books, and find solved problems over the internet. Practice a lot. You could use Lindo-Lingo to test your results (it is an extremely easy program to use).

Good luck!

 

Re: Good question

Two-three years ago while designing a pick and place robot for the semiautomatic asembly in the electronic industry, I used the travelling salesman algorithm, out of my own initiative, to find out the quickest way to handle de effector. But that was about it. I have never ever seen anyone use it. My guess is that it is a tool available for managers or engineers to use when they see the situation requires so. I too have never seen jobs adds in OR per se.

 

Really - what type of robot did you use (Brooks or Asyst?) - and what types of substrates did you handle?

 

We got involved in a project involving a machine that had to "handle" elements of a PCB to an operator that, through a beam of light, would know where to place this element. I think they had the idea to sell this type of machines to South East Asia to companies that couldn´t justify fully automated equipment and were doing middle or small size production. We had a problem with the time nedeed to hand the elements and the relative "randomness" that involves the different elements a PCB has. To calculate times (to design the robot) I used that algorithm I mentioned the other day. I think at the end we used a SCARA that accessed a library of rotatory bins that of course contained all the different elements the operator was most likely to need.

It was actually pretty cool.


Any other application of L.P. in the real world?

 

Applications of mathematical programming are used in all sorts of places.

Airlines use it for aircraft and crew scheduling.

The military uses it for various problems, such as determining a service's optimal force structure given various contraints and objectives.

I used it a couple years ago to examine a means to maximize the Air Force's "geo-presence" throughout the world.

Visit the INFORMS or MORS websites and read about other applications of OR in the real world:

www.informs.org
www.mors.org

 

Thanks a lot Dr. Puffy, very interesting links.

 

On a second reading I find that quite interesting. What is it? An example of political science and engineering/maths intermingling? How did you people come up with your optimization function? I men, I am sure you had to give some subjective values to different locations. Who did that? Defense strategists? I am a foreigner (but not working for the enemy ), could you elaborate, without getting in too much detail, on how that objective function was created? (out of simple, innocent curiosity and academic interest)

I think I remember Mayor Giuliani used something similar to crack down the levels of crime in NYC. The results were overwhelming (I was living in NY state at the time). Perhaps it was a similar methodology.


Regards