Operations Analysis

Operations Analysis is the study of operational systems with the aim of identifying opportunities for improvement. It has many guises and is sometimes called Operational Research or Industrial Engineering. The discipline dates back to the Second World War.

The Battle of the North Atlantic

Shipping too and from the United States to Britain was hugely important for the war effort. As an island nation Britain was dependent on shipping and the North Atlantic became a critical battlefield as U Boats hunted down and sank merchant vessels.

The solution was obvious, create convoys and protect the merchant ships with warships but the optimum solution was not nearly so clear:

Large convoys could be heavily defended with multiple battleships but they were slow moving (only going as fast as the slowest ship) and represented a jackpot target when U boat wolf packs found them.
Small convoys were fast moving, more difficult to see and were a much smaller loss if sunk, but only relatively few protecting vessels could accompany them.

A long (and unproductive) debate ensued

Early researchers demonstrated that the number of losses a convoy received depended largely on the number of escort vessels present, rather than the size of the convoy and that multiple small convoys had a far bigger visible foot print than few small ones.

The British Navy moved to a strategy of few large convoys saving numerous lives at sea and significantly increasing the Allies chances of success and the study of operations analysis was born.