Operations Research and Emergent

Technologies

Gema Calleja, Jordi Olivella and Mariona Vilà

Abstract The unstoppable rise of computer power and technological innovation in

all aspects of everyday life is changing the way organizations function and make
decisions. Artificial intelligence, big data analytics and blockchain are some of the
emergent technologies that are impacting every industry, raising new challenges and
enabling important opportunities in the development and application of operations
research (OR). Many innovation paths arise from the hybridization between OR
and these emergent technology domains: (i) using new technologies to apply OR,
(ii) adopting new approaches to enrich OR methods and (iii) applying OR methods
to enhance emergent technologies. Based on the scientific literature, this chapter
explores the synergies between OR and emergent technologies, and highlights note-
worthy application horizons and areas of research arising from their hybridization.

1 Introduction

Emergent technologies can be defined as technical innovations that are currently

being developed and/or nearing deployment that have the potential to exert a consid-
erable impact on business processes, organizations, cultures and interactions among
those. Its most prominent impact, though, lies in the future, and therefore, in this
phase these technologies are still somewhat uncertain and ambiguous [1].
Simply stated, operations research (OR) is the discipline of applying advanced
analytic methods to help make better (informed, effective and efficient) decisions.
More specifically, OR is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics that

G. Calleja · J. Olivella (B)

Department of Management, Institute of Industrial and Control
Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: jorge.olivella@upc.edu
M. Vilà
Department of Management, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
Barcelona, Spain
M. Vilà
EAE Business School, Barcelona, Spain

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 183

C. Machado and J. P. Davim (eds.), Management Science, Management
and Industrial Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13229-3_8
184 G. Calleja et al.

uses models, either quantitative or qualitative, to aid decision-making in complex

problems [2]. In the last few years, the disruptive innovation trends in science and
technology have interested the operations research (OR) community and new promis-
ing areas of research and application horizons have been opened for OR scientists.
The maturity of this field of research provides a solid background for the develop-
ment of models and applications, and on the other hand, challenges and opportunities
arise from the explosion of data available today and the strong need to turn them into
actionable insight.
Additionally, many innovation paths in OR arise from the intersection of several
diverse disciplines such as data science, analytics, mathematics, economics and engi-
neering, opening possibilities for new and original approaches by exploiting syner-
gies through cross-discipline hybridization. Bringing these diverse fields of research
together will require the OR community to address many intellectual challenges to
connect the realms of data, models, and decisions.
Today, OR is being used in virtually every field where complex decisions must be
made, playing important roles in a variety of industries, as well as in the government
and society at large. Examples of application fields of OR include business, engi-
neering, management, economics, manufacturing, government, health care, trans-
port, geographic information systems, scheduling, marketing, inventorying and oth-
ers [3]. Regardless of the application where the problem of study arises, selecting an
appropriate alternative has become extremely difficult in our increasingly complex,
dynamic and uncertain world. Faced by scarcity, contemporary organizations must
decide how to use optimally their resources more than ever now.
The field of OR encompasses a wide range of problem-solving techniques and
methods. While originally OR borrowed techniques from other scientific fields, the
growing scope of the problems addressed by this discipline has led to the growth of
special analytic methods, including such now-familiar terms as simulation, mathe-
matical optimization, queuing theory, data analysis, neural networks, expert systems
and decision analysis. In essence, these techniques are used to create and analyze
scientific models that attempt to study the mathematical structure of human activity
[4].
The discipline of OR, however, differs greatly from other sciences in the sense
that it aims not only to explain real-world phenomena but also to guide decision-
making. For that matter, OR assists decision-makers in evaluating the given problems,
identifying the alternative solutions and selecting the preferred solution. Likewise,
OR also provides a quantitative aid so that it will become easier for the decision-
maker to predict the future outcomes of the solutions [5].
Naturally, OR both as discipline and as professional activity is deeply connected
with the environment in which it develops. Today, OR and technology are more and
more intertwined, each pushing forward and stimulating the other. New problems
lead to the formulation of new models which require new and powerful computing
methods (the technology), but the design of these computing methods requires and
motivates new theoretical work. What makes this interaction a self-reinforcing loop is
that new and more advanced theories and new and higher-performance technologies
Operations Research and Emergent Technologies 185

enlarge the area of tractable problems suggesting the possibility of new applications
[6].
In a world that has been reported to be in the middle of an industrial revolution
[7], new technologies progress is a critical factor to consider. In particular, the inter-
relation between OR and emergent technologies deserves to be taken into account.
This interaction between OR and new emergent technologies adopts different forms
that are highlighted next.
(1) Use of new technologies to apply OR
Due to the nature of its methods, a great majority of the OR solutions require
data manipulation and calculations. In the first years of OR, calculations were per-
formed by hand and, in spite of this, its methods were implemented to real problems
and improved substantially the previous procedures [8]. In spite of this, the present
development of OR cannot be understood without the great improvement in the man-
agement and processing of data. In effect, OR would have not expanded as it has
without the development of high-performance computers and sophisticated software
technologies [9]. Nowadays, computational capacity goes on increasing and we can
assume that it will continue influencing OR uses and possibilities.
(2) Using new approaches to enrich OR methods
Some of the so-called emergent technologies are not in fact artefacts or systems,
but analysis procedures. This is the case of machine learning (ML) and artificial
intelligence (AI). Thus, it is not surprising that some of these approaches are taken
into account in the OR procedures itself. Actually, AI-based techniques are widely
used to address OR problems. It has been reported the frequent use of methods such
as Tabu search [10] and simulated annealing [11], among many others. Similarly,
branch-and-bound procedures, for example, are taking advantage of machine learning
approach [11, 12].
(3) OR contribution to emergent technologies
As new technological innovations continue to arise, they create challenges and
opportunities for operations researchers to enhance the utilization of such innova-
tions.
The objective of this chapter is to draw attention to the relation of OR and emer-
gent technologies based on the scientific literature. With this aim, Sect. 1 refers to
several concepts involved, including emergent technologies and the different OR and
emergent technologies relations; Sect. 2 reports some specific relations between a
set of emergent technologies and OR, and Sect. 3 is devoted to present some final
remarks.
186 G. Calleja et al.

2 OR and Different Emergent Technologies

2.1 Big Data Analytics

Big data has been defined as an umbrella term applied to data sets whose size,
velocity and complexity are beyond the ability of available tools to undertake their
acquisition, store, analytics and application in a reasonable amount of time [12]. This
abundance of complex data is mostly being generated from a variety of digital sources,
flowing from the increasingly chaotic mix of competitors, customers, the general
public (through social networks and user-generated content), connected machines
and products (the Internet of things) and the business itself [13].
Big data analytics (BDA) (also called advanced analytics) has multiple definitions
and interpretations. The common denominator of all these definitions is that big data
analytics is the encapsulation of all mechanisms that help convert data into actionable
insight for better and faster decision-making [14, 15]. This potential for insight and
enhanced decision-making is leading organizations to embrace BDA and shift to
fact/evidence-based decision-making, in order to measure trends more precisely,
create more accurate predictive models, target more effective interventions, optimize
business processes and, ultimately, achieve a decisive competitive advantage [16, 17].
Both in OR and BDA, the quantitative decision science methods can be grouped
into two main categories: data-driven and problem-driven approaches [18]. Whereas
the goal of the two approaches is to help decision-makers make better decisions, the
way they tackle the problem is different. Data-driven approaches aim to gain new
insight from the data about the problem of interest. Contrastingly, problem-driven
approaches do not focus on data, but on the business problem itself. The goal is to
translate the business problem into a well-defined analytical problem that can be
modeled and solved [19].
Analytics methods can be thought of as consisting of three levels of modeling:
descriptive methods (to mimic the system or process studied and answer the ques-
tion of what is happening), predictive methods (to project the system or process
performance into the future and answer the question of what will be happening) and
prescriptive methods (to prescribe to the decision-maker the best or preferred set of
policies and answer the question of what should be done) [20]. Generally, descriptive
analysis is conducted via data-driven approaches; prescriptive analysis is performed
by problem-driven techniques; and both data-driven and problem-driven approaches
are utilized for predictive analysis [19].
Because of the volume, variety and velocity that characterizes big data, an efficient
extraction of useful knowledge from these data becomes a huge challenge, and thus,
modern-day analytics techniques can require extensive computation. As a result,
the tools, techniques and algorithms used for BDA arise in a wide variety of fields
that include OR, computer science, statistics, data science, artificial intelligence and
mathematics [14].
Fueled by increased computer power and the availability of data, organizations are
shifting the way they solve problems towards a more data-driven and more informed
Operations Research and Emergent Technologies 187

approach. The early history of OR was data-driven, where repeated observations

about a specific system led to models and decisions [21, 22]. Over the years, though,
the OR community has drifted away from being data-driven to being problem-driven,
and the challenge today for the OR community is to reorient itself and emphasize
data-driven models using extensive real-world data, as suggested by Simchi-Levi
[21].
At the outset, it would seem the practice of BDA would fall squarely within the
domain of OR. However, while the work of these two fields is inherently analytical
[23], their purposes are different. The goal of OR is to optimally solve decision
problems arising in real-world applications, with a focus on prescriptive modeling,
whereas BDA is aimed at the transformation of large amounts of data to gain insight
for better decision-making. Such a process can be initiated by the desire to address
specific problems or the need to explore and learn from the existing data [24].
Both OR and BDA are multidisciplinary and application focused. They drive
decision-making via modelling, optimization and statistics, and are used in almost
every domain like logistics, manufacturing, health care, marketing, human resources
or finance [25]. For this reason, synergies can be achieved by integration of OR
optimization techniques into BDA and vice versa, especially since in both cases very
large search spaces of solutions need to be explored [14].
One of the BDA techniques that benefits from integration with the OR solving
methodology is data mining (DM) [25]. DM is concerned with abstracting the consid-
erable amount of knowledge that is often hidden in databases. The synergy between
OR and DM is bidirectional. On the one hand, OR can be useful to increase DM effi-
ciency. In this context, metaheuristics, and particularly multi-objective metaheuris-
tics, have been widely proposed, which all tend to deal with an NP-hard optimization
problem that arises in a DM task [26]. On the other hand, less research has been done
to understand how DM techniques can enrich OR methods, but significant such work
is emerging, with the objective to either improve the quality of results obtained by
OR approaches, or to speed up the execution of algorithms [27].

2.2 Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the branch of computer science that enables machines to
mimic human behaviour, such as learning or problem-solving. AI is used in multiple
areas as science, engineering, medicine, business and weather forecasting [28]. The
progress in the field is highlighted by computers beating human world champions
in chess and Go [29]. Some of the most significant application areas within AI are
solution search at combinatorial problems, knowledge-based systems or expert sys-
tems, natural language processing, pattern recognition, robotics, machine learning,
interference functions and automatically programming [28].
Actually, the field of AI is an umbrella term that encompasses three fields of
research: artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL).
ML refers to the software research area that enables algorithms to learn without
188 G. Calleja et al.

human intervention. In turn, DL is an offshoot of ML that tries to emulate the function

of inner layers of the human brain in order to create knowledge from multiple layers
of information processing.
The interaction between the fields of OR and AI has been active and fruit-
ful, stemming from interdisciplinary advances in several research areas. The first
crossroads where OR has met AI is combinatorial optimization. In particular, lin-
ear and integer programming, constraint-based optimization and stochastic local
search approaches have been proposed [30]. Another area of intersection is sequen-
tial decision-planning. Planning has been at the core of AI since its inception. In this
time, Markov decision processes have become the conceptual model that has enabled
the shift from the traditional deterministic, goal-based model, to tackle problems
with uncertainty in action effects and in knowledge of the system state, and multiple,
conflicting objectives [30, 31]. For example, AI approaches using Markov decision
processes can be found in varied applications such as in health care to approximate
optimal treatment decisions over time [32], in robotics to reduce uncertainty in object
sorting and manipulation [33], in ecology to select the best course of management
actions for conservation of biodiversity [34], and in aviation to guide unmanned
aircraft in uncertain environments [35].
OR and AI techniques have also been successfully applied is the assessment of
bank performance [36]. Numerous applications of data envelopment analysis can be
found, which is the most widely OR technique in the field, along with multicriteria
decision aid. AI techniques such as neural networks and support vector machines
have also been used in recent years, to predict bank failure and to assess bank cred-
itworthiness and underperformance. However, the integration of techniques arising
from OR and AI in this field seems to be an area of research that needs further
attention.
Another synergy where the OR and AI communities have much of value to
exchange with one another is in the abstraction/relaxation methods they use for state
space search. State space search is a problem-solving technique used for various
optimization problems such as the travelling salesman problem (TSP). The gen-
eral notion of state space abstraction/relaxation is identical in both cases and often
provides the key technology for state-of-the-art performance. However, the routing
problems studied in OR, when formulated as dynamic programs, have special prop-
erties compared to the generic state spaces studied by AI. Therefore, the OR routing
problems would be challenging tests of the more generic AI abstraction methods
deserving of close study by the AI community [37].
Enhancements originating from the integration of OR and AI techniques have
been highlighted in the study of intelligence transportation system (ITS), an effec-
tive way to alleviate traffic congestion and improve transportation efficiency, which
synthesises a variety of technologies, including information, computer, data commu-
nication, sensor, automatic control theory, OR and AI [38]. OR models and math-
ematical programming techniques are largely in use to support a variety of tasks
involving traffic analysis, signal timing and evaluation of alternative traffic manage-
ment strategies. On the other hand, AI techniques can significantly contribute in two
directions: (1) to overcome the major limitations of traffic control technology and
Operations Research and Emergent Technologies 189

extend the range of situations the control system is able to deal with and (2) to pro-
vide traffic operators with better support to cope with the increasingly complexity
and flexibility of technology [39].

2.3 Machine Learning

The past few years have witnessed a proliferation of literature in the overlap between
OR and machine learning (ML), both in terms of research and practice. ML can be
defined as a type of artificial intelligence in which a machine is capable to learn and
adapt itself to any change in data without being explicitly programmed [40]. More
specifically, ML uses data mining techniques and other learning algorithms to build
models of what is happening behind some data so that it can predict future outcomes.
In many fields, researchers are beginning to use its techniques to understand their
systems and solve broader, more complex problems. ML has been applied across
a wide range of empirical sciences, from biology to cosmology to social science.
For example, astrophysicists are classifying galaxies [41], and data scientists are
working to analyse literary text [42]. Recent applied success examples in areas of
technology and science include robotics and autonomous vehicle control, speech
processing and natural language processing, neuroscience research, and applications
in computer vision. Similarly, the effects of ML have also been felt broadly across a
range of industries concerned with data-intensive issues, such as consumer services,
fault diagnosis in complex systems and the control of logistic networks [43].
Within OR, the domain of optimization—and particularly, mixed integer pro-
gramming (MIP) optimization—is closely tied to the domain of ML. The boundaries
between those two domains can be somewhat blurry because MIP techniques can be
used to solve ML problems, and ML tools can be used to solve MIP problems [44]. In
that sense, some of the MIP for ML works is highlighted next. Deep neural networks
(DNNs) are popular architectures in ML based on learning data representations. Fis-
chetti and Jo [45] use MIP to model DNNs with application to adversarial ML, a
research field that aims to enable the safe adoption of ML tools in adversarial set-
tings, such as spam filtering, malware detection and biometric recognition. Support
vector machines (SVMs) are classification techniques widely used in ML. For the
classic VSM problem, [46] present a reformulation to tackle the M-big constraints.
The recent work [47] solves this problem by framing it as a MIP model.
On the other hand, ML has proven useful for MIPs as well. The branch-and-bound
procedure involves a number of parameters that are tuned to the needs of the specific
classes of problems. These parameters decide what should be done next at a certain
node of the procedure. Recently, several works explored how ML can be used to
tune these parameters and predict whether making a decision at a node will improve
the overall run-time of the procedure [48, 49]. These works are promising both for
generic MIP solvers and for exploring their success in specific classes of problems
[50].
190 G. Calleja et al.

During the last years, metaheuristics have been used to enhance the performance of
machine learning problems [51]. In the incorporation of machine learning techniques
into metaheuristics, the major interest of this hybridization scheme is to extract useful
knowledge from the history of the search in order to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of metaheuristics [52, 53].

2.4 Renewable Energy Resources

As a result of the humanity’s technological, economic and societal progress, one of the
greatest challenges today is how to power the world sustainably while minimizing
environmental harm [54]. Indeed, this global progress has led to a fast growth of
greenhouse emissions along with high and unstable fuel prices, which are the driving
forces to utilize renewable energy resources (RER) more efficiently.
Despite the advantages of RER, including increased energy safety reduction in
dependence on fuel fossil resources and the reduction of greenhouse emissions to the
atmosphere, RER also presents important drawbacks, such as the discontinuity of
generation, as most RER depends on the climate. For this reason, their use requires
complex design, planning and control optimization methods [55].
Big data is revolutionizing the way of energy production and the pattern of energy
consumption. With the advent of smart grids, electrical networks are using intelligent
systems and information technologies to facilitate the deployment and integration
of RER, smart consumer devices, automated systems, electricity storage and peak-
saving technologies.
Fortunately, recent advances in big data analytics and computer technologies are
enabling the OR research community to deal with these optimization challenges in
renewable and sustainable energy applications [56]. A considerable research effort
has been made on optimization methods to solve renewable energy problems, espe-
cially for wind and solar energy systems [55]. Following the increasing worldwide
demand for energy, a primary research interest is the expansion of distribution net-
works. Because of the high investment costs needed for creating a renewable energy
installation, a critical issue for the design and long-term planning of energy systems
is to select the best alternative among several renewable energy systems [57].
At the community level, renewable energy system planning is a complex problem
involving the allocation patterns of energy and services, formulation of local policies
of energy consumption, economic development and energy structure, and considera-
tion of the relationships among economic cost, system reliability and energy-supply
security. In this sense, several optimization approaches based on mathematical pro-
gramming have been proposed in order to obtain the RER allocation and capacity
expansion solution with a minimized cost, and maximized system reliability and
energy security [58].
Short-term energy planning is a challenging problem due to the existence of mul-
tiple uncertainties. In large-scale scenarios, it is crucial that the electric system is
able to compensate the effects of the variability of the wind, solar or hydropower
Operations Research and Emergent Technologies 191

availability. In this sense, researchers have used artificial neural networks (ANNs)
for the prediction of energy demands [59], simulation techniques for the optimization
of the standby plant or grid connection [60], and heuristic algorithms for timetabling
and labour scheduling with excellent results [61]. Energy planning problems involve
multiple decision-makers and criteria, and thus, multicriteria decision-making meth-
ods have been proposed for multi-objective distributed energy resources planning
[62].
From the point of view of control, one of the main problems is determining
the impact of renewable energy on distribution networks [55]. Optimization meth-
ods have been presented for solving the problem of new renewable energy sources
penetration and congestion [63], optimal bidding strategy [64] and optimal opera-
tion management of distribution networks [65]. Further, there has been considerable
interest in the use of RER for water pumping [66] and the design of energy-based
greenhouses [67].
According to the survey presented by Baños et al. [55], some of the OR methods
applied to tackle renewable energy problems are based on traditional approaches,
such as mathematical programming, Lagrangian relaxation, and Nelder–Mead sim-
plex search. Heuristic approaches have been increasingly proposed, especially
genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization. Finally, Pareto optimization
techniques and parallel processing have been pointed as promising research areas in
the field of renewable and sustainable energy.

2.5 Internet of Things

Following the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach, the Internet

of things (IoT) has been considered to be based on pervasive presence around us of
a variety of things or objects—such as radio-frequency identification (RFID), tags,
sensors, actuators, and mobile phones—which, through unique addressing schemes,
are able to interact with each other and cooperate with their neighbours to reach
common goals [68]. The designing of such systems requires considering the elements
that will constitute them and how the information will be obtained, transmitted and,
finally, analyzed.
The design of the IoT systems has been addressed by using OR methods. When
designing an IoT system, the selection of the set of smart objects that will form the
systems is one of the critical tasks to perform. Factors such as energy consumption
and quality of service have to be taken into account. This problem has been addressed
by using OR methods. Particularly, it has been characterized as a bi-objective shortest
path optimization (BSPO) problem [69], a multi-dimensional multi-choice knapsack
problem (MMKP) [70] and a multi-constraint shortest path (MCSP) problem [71].
The transmission of the information obtained is one of the biggest challenges of
the IoT. The huge number of sources of information and data to transmit requires low
bandwidth, lossy and low-power network protocol. With this aim, the ROLL (routing
over low power and lossy) working groups defined in 2008 the RPL routing protocol
192 G. Calleja et al.

[72]. The RPL routing protocol has been characterized as a robust shortest path tree
(RSPT), a robust variation of the shortest path tree [73]. In order to define a routing
protocol for RPL, RPL routing problem with uncertainties has been characterized as
a robust shortest path tree (RSPT), a robust optimization variant of the shortest path
tree problem. A mixed integer linear programming formulation has been used to test
the quality of proposed algorithm [73].
How to effectively analyze the information obtained through the IoT is a big
challenge and, at the same time, generates big opportunities. As for example, concepts
as optimization of supply chain can be redefined by considering the importance of
risk, which makes the results obtained much more applicable to real-life problems
[74].

2.6 Blockchain

Ever since the appearance of blockchain-based cryptocurrency in 2009 [75], this

concept has been studied both as an opportunity for investment and as a means of
decentralized banking and finance. However, research on other aspects and applica-
tions of Blockchain is a very new field that has started to develop only in the last five
years.
Simply put, blockchain is an open, distributed ledger used to record all transactions
performed. To do so, subsequent blocks are added—hence the term blockchain. Such
ledger is accessible to all. This fact guarantees that every unit of currency traded
disappears from its origin and reaches its destination. Consequently, it can be used
as a decentralized banking system. Additionally, users validating transactions in the
ledger are rewarded with more cryptocurrency, in a very memory and processing
power-expensive procedure known as mining [75].
Due to the nature of blockchain-based cryptocurrency, OR applications have been
useful in order to understand, analyze, predict and also optimize different aspects of
the mining process, the characteristics of Blockchain or the value of cryptocurrency.
The mining process has also been modeled and optimized by means of OR appli-
cations, by assimilating it to more widely studied problems. A commodity extraction
problem is presented as a stochastic switching problem [76], in which the decision-
maker wants to maximise profit, labeling the switch of different mining spots as either
open, closed or abandoned. Each of the options has associated costs and incomes. A
path-wise approach to dynamic programming is presented for the resolution of this
commodity mining problem. However, the authors indicate that this method can also
be applied to the optimization of cryptocurrency mining [76].
The allocation of cryptocurrency mining resources has also been compared to
classical problems and solved using OR techniques. For instance, in the allocation
of limited edge computing power to miners for mobile Blockchain networks are
assimilated to a resource assignment problem [77]. The proposed solution procedure
is based on finding the optimal auction, in which bidders are the miners and the
auctioneer is the edge computing service provider that assigns the limited edge com-
Operations Research and Emergent Technologies 193

puting power. A deep learning algorithm that uses a multi-layered neural network is
applied in this case, with very promising results.

3 Closing Remarks

The wide array of quantitative OR methods offers tremendous capabilities to best

compete in the fast-paced, data-rich, highly connected organizations of the twenty-
first century. This chapter describes several innovation trends in science and technol-
ogy, provides examples of how they are being utilized and hybridized with the OR
field and identifies potential synergies for future research. Here, we close with some
additional thoughts on how OR can be used in today’s technological, data-driven
world.
It can be argued that in the new age of uncertainty, we can be sure only that breath-
taking change will continue [78]. Today’s business ecosystem consists of very com-
plex problems that play an important part in our daily life, science and economy [14].
Thus, understanding such complex problems, describing them mathematically, using
them for prediction and ultimately controlling them are one of the major challenges
of our century. This is where OR coupled with advanced sciences and technologies
provide significant utility. However, for OR to thrive in ever-changing times, it should
adapt and evolve as fast as the business ecosystem is changing. The key to this fast
adaptation would be a strong curiosity about development in these systems and a
willingness to experiment with original hybrids of OR techniques with information
and decision technologies.
The trend towards data-driven and analytical decision-making presents important
opportunities for OR professionals, because their optimization and modeling knowl-
edge, along with their analytical skills will be in high demand [23]. However, to
succeed in this new paradigm it is necessary to recalibrate the focus from applying
analytical methods to solve individual problems to a broader view of developing
end-to-end analytical solutions integrating the use of data, processes and systems,
since analytics solutions are often implemented within enterprise systems [78].
Optimization and simulations models are often considered the core of OR appli-
cations. With the advance of big data analytics, these OR models are just a part of the
analytics toolkit and will likely be hybridized with other kinds of analytical models
and methods, such as statistical and artificial intelligence models, with the objective
to address an expanded model [24].
In the descriptive–predictive–prescriptive framework, OR is a part of the pre-
scriptive analytics. This is the most impactful game-changer opportunity when it
comes to solve problems using analytic methods. As discussed in [24], few organi-
zations incorporate models in their analytics effort. Given that optimization models
often offer strategic value to organizations, this is a tremendous opportunity for the
OR community, since decision optimization has been always at the core of the OR
discipline.
194 G. Calleja et al.

The list of synergies and decision problems described in this chapter is not exhaus-
tive, and new developments and technologies will sure give rise to more interesting
decision-making challenges. Still, it seems clear that there are significant opportu-
nities stemming from the hybridization of OR and the research fields highlighted in
the chapter, which arise across the full methodological spectrum of OR. Therefore, a
broader participation of OR researchers in the interdisciplinary fields where emergent
technologies arise would be beneficial to exploit such synergies in the future.

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