Operational Research Society of Singapore

1
Operational Research Society of Singapore

• Acceptance Speech
• on the conferment of the
• Second Honorary Fellowship
• on 12th November 2000
• at
• 25th Anniversary Dinner Celebration

2
Personal Perspectives of the Growth of OA in
MINDEF

• 1963 Dr Tony Tan graduated from MIT majoring in
  Operations Research
• 1965 Independence birth of MINDEF
• 1966 Raising of SAF National Service
• 1968 UK announced withdrawl of all her troops in
  1971

3
Consequence of UK Troop Withdrawl Decision

• The air defence shield provided by the RAF will
  disappear in 3 years
• There will be no Royal Navy to stop an invasion
  from the sea
• The single division of the Army being raised will
  not be sufficient to defend the country

4
Actions Taken to Mitigate the Loss of UK Troops

• Accelerated the buildup of the Army
• Armour
• Artillery
• Built the Airforce with the UK aid of 50 million
  pounds
• Strikemaster trainers
• Hunter Fighter aircraft
• Bloodhound SAMs and ADRU
• Created a Navy of Patrol Vessels and Missile Gun
  Boats

5
The First OR Analyst in MINDEF

• 1968 Captain Henry Cheong was sent to learn about
  OR in UK
• He learnt by doing apprenticeship at DOAE
• We were all ready to apply OR to force planning
  and equipment selection decisions on his return
• But we were not yet ready for OR !

6
The First Training Plan of OA Staff in MINDEF

• 1971 NPS identified to be the best school for
  military OR training. Major Lui Pao Chuen was the
  first to be sent to NPS
• 1972 two more staff (Lee Kheng Nam Lim Lay
  Geok) sent to NPS to read OR
• 1973 Major Henry Cheong also went to NPS
• By 1975 we had 4 NPS graduates in OR

7
Good Idea but Wrong Timing

• We never got to set up the OA Department that we
  were sent to NPS for
• Tyranny of the Urgent made all of us into project
  managers on our return
• Dilemma We needed good analysts and we also
  needed project managers with the same stock of
  high quality staff. As project management was
  more important OR had to be sacrificed

8
Use of OR in MINDEF in 1970s

• With great difficulty
• No data
• No time
• No staff
• No patience with analysis
• No user to work with
• Qualitative arguments were the norm
• Minister did OR in his head and wondered why the
  analysts were so slow to understand

9
Creation of a new entity in MINDEF SPD

• 1975 Dr Goh created a new job SPD (Special
  Projects Director)
• My job was to Dream, to Deliberate and to Do if
  Dr Goh decided to implement the project
• Areas of focus were
• Air Defence
• Command Control
• Airforce Infrastructure

10
Examples of Applications of OR by SPD

• Reliability of Bloodhound SAMs
• Detection of ground targets by pilots
• Probability of destroying targets with Fighters
• Probability of survival of ground targets with
  dispersion, camouflage, deception and hardening
• Engagement of 35mm AA guns different types of
  SAMs against Fighters

11
The Most Valuable Contribution of OR in the late
1970s

• Wargaming and modelling of the air defence system
  of Singapore
• Modelling the passive defence of our airbases
  against air and ground attacks
• Equipment evaluation
• Master Planning
• Force Planning

12
The Growth of OR in 1980s

• 1983 An OA Department set up in JOPD with
  establishment of two posts
• A small section was also established in DSO
• 1986 Operations Analysis Department was formed
  with the amalgamation of the two groups in CDSO

13
Strategy for the growth of OA in MINDEF

• Start with a centralized organization
• Decentralize and setup OA Branches in user
  departments ASAP
• Educate high potential analysts at NPS
• Send military officers to shorter course at RMCS
• Conduct local courses by our own staff for young
  military scholars and our staff
• Get the most experienced respected military OR
  teacher to help

14
Strategy for the growth of OA in MINDEF(2)

• Push OTE as a instrument for service Chiefs to
  measure the effectiveness of their units
• Growth areas would be our Manpower systems and
  capital decision support
• Modelling of combat, wargaming campaign
  analysis would be key enablers
• To grow from providing studies to providing
  systems

15
Implementation of first phase of the strategy
took 5 years

• Professor Wayne Hughes of NPS was selected to
  nurture OAD
• A constant flow of our analysts went to NPS
• Some went to other schools like MIT and Stanford
  !
• A stream of military officers went to RMCS
• Local courses were well subscribed

16
OA in MINDEF in the last Decade

• Top management recognized the value of OA to
  support major capital decisions
• All major capital projects are now supported by
  OA
• OA staff had delivered decision support systems
• OTE had helped to make users more Analytical and
  more operational data available for OA

17
Challenges for the MINDEF OA Community

• To remain honest to their profession as their
  customers may not like the results of their
  analysis
• Maintain synergy within the OA community whilst
  serving different organizations
• To remain focussed on building up long term
  capability and yet meet immediate and urgent
  demands of users

18
Challenges for the MINDEF OA Community(2)

• The OA community must continue to dare to dream
• Their work cannot stop after decisions have been
  taken
• They must continue until the delivery of the
  capability
• They must be both visionary and missionary
• They must dare to dream, do deliver

19
DARE to DREAM DO (DESPITE DISAGREEMENTS
OBSTACLES)
DREAM
DELIBERATE
DELIVER

• VISION
• MISSION

DECIDE
DISCOVER
DO
20
Thank you for your Attention !
ORSS
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