| Abstract: |
Early in World War II, an emerging technology then known as Radio Detection and Ranging (and now simply by its acronym “radar”) enabled the creation and development of a new, multi-disciplinary problem solving approach for critical challenges facing wartime leaders – Operational Research. After the war, OR rapidly evolved to incorporate new optimization methods and simulation techniques, and expanded its contributions beyond military applications to other government functions and a wide range of commercial applications. Today, the “Internet of Things” (IoT) offers another disruptive opportunity for OR to integrate new technologies into enterprise systems. Defined as networks of devices, objects, and people, IoT has been labeled as transformative providing the next wave of the Information Technology revolution by connecting human with machine intelligence to improve performance through greater automation and sensor-based analytics. Examples include global logistics and supply chains, autonomous vehicles and aircraft, “smart” buildings, cities, and infrastructure, healthcare, and a variety of prognostic “early warning” systems which capitalize on predictive analytics. In manufacturing, IoT is already enabling what has been described as “the 2nd Industrial Revolution”. This Communications Session will explore ideas from technical, managerial, and social perspectives, and encourage follow-up exchanges and dialog on relevant opportunities for OR contributions using both current methods and potentially new concepts for an “IoT world”. |