The British/Europeans refer to “operational research”, the Americans to “operations research” – but both are often shortened to just “OR” – which is the term we will use.
Another term which is used for this field is “management science” (MS). The Americans sometimes combine the terms OR and MS together and say OR/MS or ORMS. Yet other terms sometimes used are “industrial engineering” (IE) and “decision science’ (DS). In recent years there has been a move towards a standardization upon a single term for the filed, namely the term “Operation Research”.
