Yet Another Name for Our Field

I was wandering through the Internets and came across a new blog from Palisade.com, makers of @RISK and other software. It was a nice, relevant blog with some good stories, particularly on Monte Carlo simulation. I was taken aback by the name of the blog, however: “Operation Research”. I was a little confused for a bit and had to check back with my own blog to be sure that it is “Operations Research” normally in the US. In much (but not all) of the rest of the world, it is “Operational Research”. I am off to Bonn in a couple of days for the EURO meeting. During part of my time there, I will be attending board meetings for IFORS, where I try hard to use the term “Operational Research”.

But “Operation Research”? That just sounds wrong. It is hard to see how often that phrase occurs on web pages, since Google does some correction for you, but a search does show that it occurs, though often as a clear misspelling. I am not sure it is an improvement, but does represent something that could be used when the “operations/operational” conflict gets too much.