SIG: History - OR: I Remember

OR: I Remember

On 18 April 1968 at a meeting at the Sunnyside Hotel in Johannesburg, it was decided to form a national steering committee to organise the possible establishment of the Operations Research Society of South Africa (ORSSA). A member of this committee, Jos Grobbelaar, is presenting a talk on the early days of operations research (OR) in South Africa. First, Jos describes his own introduction to OR which involved a series of lectures by Gerhard Geldenhuys at the National Research Institute for Mathematical Studies (NRIMS) at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Jos also refers to the first course in OR at a South African university which he enrolled for in 1968. He shares his own experience of teaching OR at the University of South Africa (Unisa), applying OR at ARMSCOR in the 1970s, and applying an OR approach in the then Committee of University Principals. The…