I know that this is an operations research problem, but I don\'t know what the o
ID: 3008158 • Letter: I
Question
I know that this is an operations research problem, but I don't know what the objective function is. What are we trying to maximize or minimize here? And how can it be solved?Customized Project Reviews by the Energy Engineering Group Southern California Edison facilitates several energy efficiency programs which are offered to customers within its service area. The "deemed" and "customized" approaches are the two methods that customers are able to obtain incentives through these energy efficiency programs. Under the "deemed" approach, a customer installs a statewide accepted energy efficiency measure that has a fixed amount of energy savings, measured as kilowatts per hour, per unit installed. The energy savings from "deemed" measures are established through the Database for Energy Efficiency Resources (DEER) or SCE work papers. In contrast, custom measures do not have a fixed amount of energy savings. Rather the energy savings from these measures are calculated by outsourced engineering companies. It is the responsibility of the engineering group at Edison to review the energy savings calculations of the outsourced engineering companies and approve them for incentives. The engineering group at Edison is planning its production schedule of anticipated custom project reviews for the upcoming year. Southern California Edison receives three sizes of customized projects. Customized projects are categorized by the amount of energy savings produced by each submitted project: less than 10,000 kWh, between 10,000 kWh and 250,000 kWh, or greater than 250,000 kWh. There are three program groups that offer the customized approach: Commercial, Industrial & Agricultural (CIA) Calculated Programs, Partnership Programs and New Construction Programs. Resources: Workers of Southern California Edison's engineering group are responsible for processing and documenting the custom projects. Table summarizes the per project requirements for the three different types of custom projects. All times are in hours. Each resource works a 40-hour work week, which equates to 160 hours per month, and each custom project requires the effort of one (1) resource. SCE also employs 15 engineers (also referred to as "reviewers"), but due to other work commitments aside from custom reviews, is expected that an average of one- half of the engineers can dedicate their time to custom reviews in a given day Custom projects for each program group go through different processes, which are shown in the following process schematic diagram for CIA Calculated, Partnerships and New Construction
Explanation / Answer
The term Operations Research (OR) was first coined by MC Closky and Trefthen in 1940 in a small town, Bowdsey of UK. The main origin of OR was during the second world war – The military commands of UK and USA engaged several inter-disciplinary teams of scientists to undertake scientific research into strategic and tactical military operations.
Their mission was to formulate specific proposals and to arrive at the decision on optimal utilization of scarce military resources and also to implement the decisions effectively. In simple words, it was to uncover the methods that can yield greatest results with little efforts. Thus it had gained popularity and was called “An art of winning the war without actually fighting it”
The name Operations Research (OR) was invented because the team was dealing with research on military operations. The encouraging results obtained by British OR teams motivated US military management to start with similar activities. The work of OR team was given various names in US: Operational Analysis, Operations Evaluation, Operations Research, System Analysis, System Research, Systems Evaluation and so on.
The first method in this direction was simplex method of linear programming developed in 1947 by G.B Dantzig, USA. Since then, new techniques and applications have been developed to yield high profit from least costs.
Definition: OR is a scientific methodology – analytical, experimental and quantitative – which by assessing the overall implications of various alternative courses of action in a management system provides an improved basis for management decisions.