Management Science (Science & Technology)

196 Pages·1968·69.202 MB·English

by  Stafford Beer

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The Business
‘ Use of Operations
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Editor’s Preface
In terms of the effect on other people, the management of complex
enterprises, in business, in government, and in the military services
is certainly the most important activity in which individual men
engage. Sound and imaginative management can fashion a successful
and useful enterprise out of routine materials, while poor manage-
ment can vitiate the most brilliant technical and staff work and
lead to an appalling waste of human effort.
Despite its importance, management is one of the most recent fields
to seek assistance from the formal apparatus of science. Some of
the tools used in management science—time and motion study, for
example—have existed for some time. The application of scientific
methods to a whole management problem, rather than merely to the
gathering of data, seems to have gotten underway only during and
after World War II, however. The feature that distinguishes the new
approach is that a problem and the system that generates the problem
are initially described in the most general terms possible, in order
that the widest range of possible models can be studied and the
widest range of possible solutions surveyed.
Management science is not a theoretician’s exercise, however. The
problems are intensely practical and must be solved in real time. Much
of the value of this book derives from the fact that the author has been
able to include a number of examples from his own experience as a
practicing management scientist.

Management Science
The Business Use of Operations Research
Stafford Beer
Doubleday Science Series
Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Garden City, New York, 1968
MANAGEMENT SCIENCE: The Business Use of Operations Research
was published simultaneously in a hardbound edition by Doubleday &
Company, Inc.
First published in the United States of America in 1967 by
Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York,
in association with Aldus Books Limited
Copyright © Aldus Books Limited, London, 1967
Printed in Italy by Arnoldo Mondadori, Verona
Contents
Chapter 1
Processes and Policies
An Art, Yes, But a Science Too.
Figures Are Not Enough
The Beginnings of Operational Research
Lessons From Early Experience
System, Prediction, and Profit
Understand First, Diagnose Second, Prescribe Third
Chapter 2
Chance, Risk, and Malice
Getting to Grips with Chance
The Use of Approximation
How Simple is a Simple Situation?
How Near is Near Enough?
The Likelihood of Getting Near Enough
Putting Probability Theory Into Action
Assessing the Ideal Stock Size
Keeping the Queue to Acceptable Length
The Genuinely Calculated Risk
Chapter 3
Quantified Insight
The Situation and Its Models
The Scientist’s Model
Meeting Deadlines in a Complex Operation
Delay and Amplified Delay
Models as Media for Simulation
The Payoff of Simulation
Chapter 4
An Alphabet of Models
: Acoustics
»: Biology
w: Cybernetics
O
: Demography
o
m: Engineering
m: Fluid Dynamics
Q: Genetics
Models and Mapping
The Cones of Resolution
Chapter 5
It Works
The Limitations of Techniques As Such
Modelling the Real-life Situation
Using Techniques to Answer Real-life Questions
When Reducing Costs Looked Too Costly
Getting Past the Paradox to the Problem
Getting Past the Problem to the Solution
Chapter 6
The Viable Governor
Implicit Control
What Should be Controlled?
Homeostasis and Ultrastability
A New Model
The Education of Systems
Chapter 7
Automation and Such 169
Industry and Evolution 170
What’s Holding Things Up? 174
Rethinking About Rethinking 177
Why Not Just Leave Things to Evolve? 180
We’ll-Learn-in-Time-Diehards 184
Death of a Diehard 188
Index 190
Suggested Reading
By Stafford Beer:
Decision and Control, John Wiley (London, 1966)
Cybernetics and Management, English Universities Press (London, 1959)
Classics on Operations Research
P. M. Morse & G. E. Kimball, Methods of Operations Research, Technology
Press of M.LI.T. and Jahn Wiley (New York, revised edition 1951).
J. F. McCloskey & F. N. Trelethen, Operations Research for Management,
Johns Hopkins Press (Baltimore, 1954).
C. W. Churchman, R. L. Ackoff, and E. L. Arnoff, Introduction to Operations
Research, John Wiley (New York, 1957).
General Works on Operations Research
C. W. Churchman, Prediction and Optional Decision, Prentice Hall (New Jersey
1961).
R. T. Eddison, K. Pennycuick, and B. H. P. Rivett, Operational Research in
Management, John Wiley (New York), 1962.
C. D. Flagle, W. H. Huggins, and R. H. Roy, Operations Research and
Systems Engineering, Johns Hopkins Press (Baltimore, 1960).
H. A. Simon, Models of Man, John Wiley (New York, 1957).
J. D. Williams, The Compleat Strategist, McGraw Hill (New York, 1954).
Conferences and Series
Proceedings of the First (1957), Second (1960), and Third (1963) International
Conferences on Operational Research, English Universities Press. ’
Progress in Operations Research Vol. 1 (Ed. Ackoff), 1961, Vol. II (Eds. D. B.
Hertz and R. T. Eddison), John Wiley (New York, 1964).
Introductory Cybernetics
W. Ross Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics, John Wiley (New York, 1956).
G. Pask, An Approach to Cybernetics, Harper and Row (New York, 1962).
E. A. Feigenbaum & J. Feldman (Eds.), Computers and Thought, McGraw Hill
(San Francisco, 1964).
Acknowledgments
Page 11 Courtesy Yuri Gridneff: photo B. Kapadia: 12 Mansell Collection :
13 Photo Media Associates : 14 Mansell Collection : 15 Metropolitan Museum of
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