Welcome to the seventeenth issue of Impact. Since 2015, our aim has remained the same: to show how effective O.R. can be for the benefit of organisations from the most diverse sectors (and for the ‘greater good’!). In this issue, you can read about how the not-for-profit organisation Crimestoppers has employed simulation to model their operations more realistically, better control staffing decisions and provide ongoing guidance to their management team on a daily basis.
The flavour of this issue is a ‘classic’ one: O.R. in logistics and supply chain management. Neil Robinson demonstrates how Vehicle Routing Problems remain very relevant to this day, whilst discussing key factors that differentiate ‘today’s VRPs from those of yesteryear’. Emile Naus analyses real world challenges in designing supply chains and Tesco’s article talks about how O.R. can help to take a closer look at the options available near the end of a product’s life.
Brian Clegg reports on some of the best practices (e.g. Knowledge Transfer Partnership projects) through which academia and industry can jointly exploit the potential of O.R. He illustrates this through the work done at the PARC Centre in Cardiff. GSK and Decision Lab also highlight the crucial role of cross-organisational collaboration in developing modelling and analysis methods that can quickly scale to a range of processes within the same industry (pharma).
On becoming the new editor, I cannot thank Graham Rand enough for bringing this title to life almost a decade ago, for his brilliant editorial work over the years, and, more personally, for his immense patience with me during the handover process. Thanks also to Carol McLaughlin at the O.R. Society and Katie Johnson at Taylor & Francis for the equally fantastic support during my ‘initiation’.
I hope you enjoy reading this issue.