Management Science Tools Research Articles

A Literature Analysis of the Use of Management Science Tools in Strategic Planning

A Literature Analysis of the Use of Management Science Tools in Strategic Planning

Management Science in Automating Postal Operations: Facility and Equipment Planning in the United States Postal Service

In 1988, the postal service released its corporate automation plan (CAP), an ambitious program that includes a cumulative capital investment of $12 billion and labor savings of $4 billion per year by 1995. The backbone of the analysis leading to the CAP was performed with a comprehensive simulation model called META (model for evaluating technology alternatives). META blends a variety of management science and software tools to create a decision support system. It has spawned a family of systems for use at both headquarters and field levels of the USPS, accelerating and enhancing the use of management science throughout the organization.

A knowledge-based system for cash management with management science expertise

A PC based system called CASH MANAGER is presented. It is a knowledge-based decision support system designed for financial managers. The system contains financial manager knowledge and management science expertise. It is designed to support decisions made by financial managers, who are not management science experts, yet desire to employ the capabilities of management science tools. CASH MANAGER can formulate a cash management problem as an embedded network problem, solve the problem, ensure its feasibility, interpret the output of the solution and recommend alternative courses of action.

Simulating the Response of a Small Open Politico-Economic System to International Crises: The Case of Switzerland

This paper applies some traditional management science tools to the study of Switzerland—a small country characterized by the openness of its politico-economic system to the outside world. Despite its apparent vulnerability to external influences, Switzerland has been able to maintain a remarkable degree of stability throughout the political and economic difficulties of the 1970’s and 1980’s. In order to help understand the main elements of this ability to absorb major international fluctuations as well as provide decision-makers with ways to analyze them and to investigate the impact of other possible developments, a simulation model of Switzerland has been constructed. This model (SIMSWISS) is based on a representation of the most important sectors of the Swiss politico-economic system, with special emphasis on their connections to the outside. SIMSWISS is constructed via a combination of dynamic simulation and optimization techniques which allow its user to check its accuracy as a representation of reality and to engage in the analysis of possible scenarios and alternative policies. An energy crisis scenario is used to illustrate how the model works and how it can be used to understand the functioning of the Swiss politico-economic system. We hope that this model will serve as the basis for a broader use of management science techniques in the study of other politico-economic systems.

Note—Performance Evaluation of State-Owned Enterprises: A Process Perspective

State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) have become important instruments of social and economic policy in industrialized mixed economies and in developing countries. The use of SOEs as instruments of public policy and the resulting clashes between these enterprises and private firms on the one hand and government and other controllers on the other, are causing concern. Public committees in different countries as well as international organizations have been searching for positive theory for guidance in handling the multitude of problems related to these enterprises. Theoretical models have made important contributions to the formalization of certain problems and the classification of the information needed to solve them. Unfortunately, these theoretical models have had little relevance for the solution of important real problems. Much of the research on SOEs is concerned with how these enterprises should behave, and what should be the product of their operations. Almost no research has been done on why SOEs function as they do. The paucity of knowledge about the operation of SOEs stems both from insufficient research effort, and from the concern of researchers with formal structures and products of these organizations and not with management behavior or with decision processes. The purpose of this paper is to call for research beyond the confines of traditional economics, using the tools of management science to obtain insights into the difficult but salient problems of SOEs.

Management Information in Tertiary Institutions

Summary To gain some insight into meeting the information needs of a tertiary institution, some understanding of the tertiary environment and the decision‐making processes is necessary. In a time of rapid social change, society is questioning the value of tertiary education and each institution needs to define goals in terms of what it is trying to accomplish and whom it is trying to serve. The decision structure is a changing combination of bureaucratic and communal relationships between various individuals and groups. There is now a trend towards a more free flow of information within the institution and to the external environment. Management information systems and other tools of management science are designed to provide information to enable more rational decisions to be made. Much information can be extracted from the operations systems such as staff, students and fiscal. Computers can now be effectively used to store, retrieve and transform large amounts of data as well as to implement some progra...

An Integrated Production, Distribution, and Inventory Planning System

The critical importance of integrating production, distribution, and inventory (PDI) operations has long been recognized by top management of many companies. Now, using the latest advances in Management Science modeling and solution technology, an integrated computer-based PDI system has saved approximately $18 million dollars during its first three years of implementation for a major national firm, Agrico Chemical Company. According to the Vice-President of Agrico Supply and Distribution, an additional $25 million savings is anticipated over the next two years. Brought about by close cooperation between company officials and an outside staff of Management Science consultants, the PDI system has been used extensively to evaluate the benefit/cost impact of alternative capital investments in both short-term and long-term planning decisions. The development of the system underscores the value of recent Management Science innovations that have made it possible to analyze interacting influences too numerous and complex to be analyzed adequately only a few years ago. Advanced network methodology incorporated into the PDI system required only one one-hundredth of the computer time and cost of methodologies previously used. The power and flexibility of the new Management Science tools have also brought about increased communication and understanding of key company operations. This increased communication and understanding stems from the inherent “pictorial” nature of network-based models, which facilitates interpretation of these models and policy recommendations based upon their solution.

Successful Hospital Personnel Scheduling

The practice of Management Science involves the search for a solution, or improvement, to a particular problem. All too often, though, Management Science is taken to be the application of sophisticated Management Science tools. This paper describes a situation in which a nonquantitative person with a problem, three students of Management Science, and one faculty member, were reminded of the above principle. The scheduling of shift-personnel is an on-going problem over a wide range of functions. In many of these cases, a “quick-and-dirty” method can be applied instead of sophisticated, computer-based models. The procedure described in this paper saves one man-week of effort during each planning period, with no increase in computer use or hardware.

Managers without Management Science?

In a recent article C. Jackson Grayson, Jr. [Grayson, Jackson C., Jr. 1973. Management science and business practice. Harvard Bus. Rev. (July–August) 41–48.] states that he used absolutely none of the management science tools explicitly. Yet, to the question whether he might have done better by using some management science models his answer is no. How does he know? That question is the main subject of this note. Can a decision maker do better without science, models, computers etc.? In other words, can we rely exclusively on experience, intuition, expert judgement, hunch or genius? The answer is no. Or, more precisely, it all depends on the decision maker, the problem and the environment.

Three views of the ideal MBA

MBA program enrollments have experienced dramatic increases in the past few years. For example, between 1967 and 1970, enrollment increased about 68 percent. Despite the controversy over the practical value of the skills emphasized in the MBA programs, the MBA's marketability has remained notably strong and resilient. 1 Some observers would cite this as evidence that, in the final analysis, industry still wants the flexible generalist who is honed and tempered through case analysis and simulation, knowledgeable in management science tools, and aware of broad and philosophical issues ranging from ecology to job satisfaction. Thus, one finds today the image of the MBA as a management generalist, equipped with t h e tools and skills t o dispassionately tackle a multiplicity of problems in systematic fashion. But does this image really describe the species, MBA. Our investigation set out to determine the ideal MBA, not in the

Business Management in Defense.

In this paper, we shall examine some new concepts of defense management which should be challengng the academic community; the scope of defense investment; the mechanism employed for facilitating decision making on allocation of resources; some measures for obtaining optimum utilization of committed resources; and the resultant impacts of these developments upon research and training for defense management. Tools of economic analysis and management science are being used in the allocation and management of defense resources. There is, however, a significant lack of appreciiation of these developments within the academic community. What little is known about the management concepts is often gleaned from controversial issues which reach headline proportions rather than from deepseated study of the decision making processes in defense. What little is known is often looked upon skeptically because some of it flows from enthusiastic analysts whose zeal for techniques overshadows their ability to define and com...

Logistics Research and Management Science

The complexities of the Air Force pose a very hard challenge for the development and application of management science. At the same time, they provide a wide range of problems to study. RAND has been engaged in logistics research for the Air Force since 1953. This paper discusses the variety of subjects studied: demand prediction, inventory control, procurement and other decision rules, management control systems, etc. These have made use of many traditional tools of analysis and management science. In addition, simulation techniques have been found particularly useful in fitting together pieces of separate research into a systems context for feasibility and consistency tests.