Foundations of Business Analysis and Operational Research

The purpose of this assignment is for you to reflect on practical case studies and consider how these relate to the material covered in Foundations of Operational Research and Business Analysis and what is written in the general modelling literature. You will discuss case studies during the essay. These will include case studies described in a journal article in the general OR/MS literature. You may also draw upon the projects you have carried out for ‘How to become an effective OR modeller/ How to become an effective Business analyst'.

You should firstly give a BRIEF introduction to the case study (or studies), then your essay should continue by addressing the subsequent issues:

• Using literature to support your discussion, what do you consider are the characteristics of a ‘good' OR/MS model?
• Determine the extent to which the models produced in the case studies matched these characteristics.
• Using literature to support your discussion, what do you consider are the main issues with problem structuring, data collection and analysis in OR/MS interventions? Were any of these encountered during the case studies? How are these best managed?
• Using literature to support your discussion, what are the key difficulties with implementation? How easy do you take the implementation stage would be for each of your projects? What do you think the main implementation issues would be for each of the cases?

You should add references to the general literature on modelling in OR/MS to support your arguments, as well as case studies you have read (and any other examples or material which help to illustrate the points that you are making).