The share of gross domestic product from the service industry reflects the competitiveness of a nation; the service industry in the USA accounts for around 80% of its gross domestic product, and it has been increasing gradually. Continual innovations and advances in enabling technologies for the service industry are crucial for developed countries to sustain their leading positions in the globalized economy. To clarify future research directions of operations research (OR) in the service industry, the state of art of OR has been examined systematically, the new requirements of OR are identified for its applications in service industries in comparison with those in manufacturing industries, and the limitations of existing methodologies and tools have been discussed. This paper was intended to provide an updated review on how OR has been applied in the service sector in recent years and what directions the study of OR will be carried forward in the near future. Under a proposed research framework, recent OR-related articles were collected from 17 leading OR journals and classified into the five most active sectors, that is, transportation and warehousing, information and communication, human health and social assistance, retails and wholesales, and financial and insurance services. The conclusions on the limitations of existing studies and the demanding ORs in the service have been drawn from our summaries and observations from a comprehensive review in this field.

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