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ABS to Enhance Operations Research Capacity

The ABS, like the rest of world, is operating in a more complex environment. Huge numbers of choices and relentless time and cost pressures make the decisions we face more daunting and difficult. Meanwhile, our systems are generating massive amounts of data about how we do our business. Are we taking advantage of this data to help us make good decisions? Are we gaining the most from our processes, the way we conduct surveys, determine our costs, evaluate benefits of new initiatives? What should we do differently and how should we do it?

The Operations Research Unit that has been established in the Methodology Division from 1 July 2006 is aimed at addressing these questions with the initial focus on Population Surveys Operations (PSO) and Economic Statistics Data Centre (ESDC). Operations Research (also sometimes referred to as Management Science or Decision Science) is a scientific approach to analysing problems and making decisions. Operations Research is interdisciplinary - it uses mathematics and mathematical modelling on computers to forecast the implications of various choices and discover the best alternatives by drawing on solutions from engineering, logic, psychology, and other social and political sciences.

For more information, please contact: Dina Neiger on (03) 9615 7977.

Email : dina.neiger@abs.gov.au