bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Dialectical Approach to Strategic Planning
Authors: Mason Richard O. 
Published: November 2008

This paper develops a new approach to the planning process. It begins by examining the critical role played by the planner's assumptions. Two criteria for a good planning technique are suggested by this examination: (1) It should expose the assumptions underlying a proposed plan so that management can reconsider them and (2) it should suggest new and more relevant assumptions upon which the planning process can proceed. Existing techniques often fail these criteria. Consequently a dialectical approach is presented which, it is proposed, satisfies the stated criteria. The realm of corporate strategic planning was chosen as a testing ground for the new approach. Evidence obtained in a field study/experiment concerning RMK Abrasives' strategic planning problem is cited in support of the method and its ability to reveal assumptions.1
A Backlogging Model and a Multi-Echelon Model of a Dynamic Economic Lot Size Production System—A Network Approach
Authors: Zangwill Willard I. 
Published: November 2008

Two dynamic economic lot size production systems are analyzed in this paper, the first being a single product model with backlogging and the second a multi-echelon model. In each model the objective is to find a production schedule that minimizes the total production and inventory costs. A key conceptual difficulty is that the mathematically perplexing problem of minimizing a concave function is being considered. It is shown that both models are naturally represented via single source networks. The network formulations reveal the underlying structure of the models, and facilitate development of efficient dynamic programming algorithms for calculating the optimal production schedules.
Dual Programming Problems as Hemi-Games
Authors: Cansado Enrique 
Published: November 2008

It is proposed here a new and unifying formal framework for duality in optimization problems, relating more closely programs to games, by means of the concepts of “hemi-games” and “quasi-duality”. A new generalization of the idea of La-grange multipliers is also presented. Associated with each programming problem, we consider (through a generalization of the Lagrange's function) one particular game (from the many possible ones) such that our programming problem is one of the two hemi-games of such a game. Each hemi-game can be considered as a programming problem. Then, for each game we have a pair of programming problems: the two hemi-games of the game considered. If the game has a solution, then so does each of the two associated programming problems; and the solution of each one is an optimal strategy for the respective player. This couple of programming problems constitute a pair of dual problems. And each pair of dual problems can be thought out as such a couple of programming problems associated with the two players of a solvable game. Various and seemingly disparate dualities, already considered in the literature, are then exhibited in order to show how they can be obtained from the hemi-game notion proposed. This conceptual framework of duality is not used here for obtaining “new” results, but seems sufficiently interesting in itself.
A Constrained Choice Model for Student Housing
Authors: Crandall Robert H. 
Published: November 2008

Traditionally, a university will formulate its policies for student housing on a short-run basis, adjusting its plans for residence hall and other on-campus housing from time to time to meet expected crises in the next few years ahead. In addition, university policy making in this field has tended to center around on-campus housing, neglecting the often substantial role played—or capable of being played—by the private market. In this paper, the author proposes that a university can usefully formulate a long range policy for student housing by (1) including in its definition of the housing system all the facilities that are used for housing students, whether on or off-campus and (2) examining the trade-offs available through the use of a formal analytical model. It is proposed that a linear program provides a useful framework for examining the issues in such an expanded housing system, and an application of this proposed approach is illustrated for a campus of the University of California.
On the Choice of Risk Levels in Managerial Decision-Making
Authors: Myers B. L. , Melcher A. J. 
Published: November 2008

The purpose of this paper was to develop a set of factors which would enable one to answer questions regarding specific alpha and beta values, whether they should be large or small errors, and to what kinds of decisions are these errors related. The set of factors found useful in thinking through the difficulties encountered are: 1) number of alternatives, 2) planning horizon, 3) past success of decision-maker, and 4) cost-revenue consequences of an action. In classical hypothesis testing there are no rules that allow one to systematically set alpha and beta error levels. Generally, type I error is set at 5 per cent (alpha per cent) and type II error is almost ignored. A number of people in diverse areas of specialization have drawn attention to the unsystematic treatment in setting alpha and beta in classical hypothesis testing. Important too is the confusion between classical statistical inference and Bayesian statistical decision-making. Selecting error levels has been made difficult by a failure to distinguish between decision and inferential problems. The difference between the expected costs of proposed projects and the expected costs associated with reducing error levels is also highlighted since this difference has led to some confusion in establishing error levels. A next step is to test whether this approach materially improves the results of hypothesis testing in organizations. Hopefully, others will be stimulated to pursue a similar line of investigation, or to provide alternative approaches.
An Optimization Model of Tuberculosis Epidemiology
Authors: Reveller Charles , Lynn Walter , Feldmann Floyd 
Published: November 2008

The problems of management of tuberculosis in developing nations are studied utilizing the tools of systems analysis. The tuberculosis system consists of interacting components which are the “states of nature” of the disease. The interaction of these components determine the future state of the disease. Controls in the form of therapy, vaccinations or prophylaxis may be superimposed on the natural processes, thus altering the future course of the disease. A descriptive mathematical model describing the flows between the various categories is used to predict the trends both with and without intervention. An optimization model is derived from the descriptive model under the assumption that a program of reduction of active cases has been specified. The optimization model selects the forms of control which achieve the specified reduction program at least cost. Optimization is accomplished via linear programming. The model is general in that the parameters, costs and initial conditions may be varied for different situations. The descriptive mathematical model and the optimization model which determines the most efficient controls are intended to improve decision-making in public health management of tuberculosis.
Professional Pluralism in an Industrial Organization
Authors: Ritti R. R. , Goldner Fred H. 
Published: November 2008

Large, technologically-based industrial organizations are composed of many-specialist functions whose interests are frequently seen to be in conflict with those of management. Conflict within such organizations occurs over mutually dependent claims to shares of limited resources necessary to further specialist aims and programs. To understand the management process—the allocation of these resources—that takes place in such organizations the following points are crucial: (1) The technology-based organization generally has many “managements” that pursue goals relevant to their specialties (e.g. engineering or manufacturing). (2) Conflict occurs among managements over specialist interests that have often been described as professional interests. (3) Where specialties have become bureaucratized, where projects have a complex division of labor over both individuals and time, specialist interests will be protected not by professionals or the “profession” but rather by someone with formal executive authority who is responsible for a work force of specialists. For not only is the work force one of both managers and specialists, but their tasks are group tasks. Survey and interview data from one large technologically-based company illustrate the existence of horizontally contending factions rather than the customarily envisioned management-specialist schism. Specialists become managers and executives in order to perform “professional” functions.
Free for All—Corporate Models: The State of the Art
Authors: Gershefski George W. 
Published: November 2008

By the early 1960's operations research models had reached the stage of development where they were being applied to some of the basic operations of a company such as inventory management, scheduling and resource allocation. During the past several years model development made such impressive strides that it was feasible to think in terms of modeling the corporation as a whole and interest began to focus on corporate modeling. By early 1969, many companies were developing corporate models or at the very least indicated their intention to do so. An undetermined number of models were completed. Another undetermined number were under construction or on the drawing boards. The exact situation was not clear and the author decided that the best way to separate fact from rumor and to learn what was actually being done was to ask the companies and he accordingly designed a questionnaire.
Free for All—Factors Making for Implementation Success and Failure
Authors: Harvey Allan 
Published: November 2008

The gap between brilliant management science solutions and the translation of these solutions into practical and profitable management action has, of course, long been recognized. Certainly TIMS has been concerned about this problem since the organization was founded. Despite the persistence of the problem and its increasing importance, there has been little hard-fact research on either causes or cures. For the most part, the discussions in the professional literature has been conceptual, and usually begin by complaining about how little research has been done on the problem of implementation.
Printing Press Scheduling for Multi-Edition Periodicals
Authors: Gorenstein Samuel 
Published: November 2008

The problem of scheduling a printing press for a periodical with several editions, so as to minimize the costs, is discussed. A mixed-integer program is formulated which includes most of the costs and constraints, but it is not solvable for problem sizes of practical interests. A heuristic method, based on the traveling salesman problem, is proposed. A sample computation is included. In §3, a theorem proves that the' solution to the n-salesmen traveling salesman problem, is obtainable from the solution to a single salesman problem with n home visits.
Dynamic Programming for Feedlot Optimization
Authors: Meyer C. F. , Newett R. J. 
Published: November 2008

Optimal operation of enterprises engaged in slaughter animal production entails determining what initial weight animal should be purchased the final selling weight the length of completion time the number and length of feeding periods within this time what ration and its quantity should be fed in each of these periods to balance feed costs, purchase cost of feeders, and time-dependent fixed costs such as yardage, handling, maintenance, and interest against market selling prices in such a way as to maximize total profit. The model presented uses dynamic programming to perform this task, and is structured so as to be functionally independent of any feed consumption-weight gain relationships, making it adaptable to feeding operations for any type of animal.
Models and Managers: The Concept of a Decision Calculus
Authors: Little John D. C. 
Published: November 2008

A manager tries to put together the various resources under his control into an activity that achieves his objectives. A model of his operation can assist him but probably will not unless it meets certain requirements. A model that is to be used by a manager should be simple, robust, easy to control, adaptive, as complete as possible, and easy to communicate with. By simple is meant easy to understand; by robust, hard to get absurd answers from; by easy to control, that the user knows what input data would be required to produce desired output answers; adaptive means that the model can be adjusted as new information is acquired; completeness implies that important phenomena will be included even if they require judgmental estimates of their effect; and, finally, easy to communicate with means that the manager can quickly and easily change inputs and obtain and understand the outputs. Such a model consists of a set of numerical procedures for processing data and judgments to assist managerial decision making and so will be called a decision calculus. An example from marketing is described. It is an on-line model for use by product managers on advertising budgeting questions. The model is currently in trial use by several product managers.
Sur La Méthode De Davidon-Flechter-Powell Pour La Minimisation Des Fonctions
Authors: Ribière Gerard 
Published: November 2008

This article is a theoretical study of the method of Davidon, modified by Flechter and Powell, used for minimization without constraints of an arbitrary function in an n-dimensional euclidean space. After a general overview of convergence of the methods of minimization and presentation of a few lemmas, we investigate the algorithms in the case of a quadratic function. We list properties already announced or proved in various papers but we give a proof of a more general convergence. In the non-quadratic case, because we could not prove the original algorithm, we propose two modifications that led to a simple proof of the convergence with some weak assumptions. On the other hand, it is possible to show that if f is strictly convex and twice continuously differentiable, the approximation of the inverse of the jacobian of the gradient, as generated by the algorithm, actually converges to this inverse. Some numerical results obtained by this modified method are presented and compared to the results obtained by other known methods. Finally, we realize that there may be an interest to apply this algorithm to resolve mathematical programmes by methods of penalty functions.
The Policy Space Structure of Markovian Systems with Two Types of Service
Authors: Brosh Israel 
Published: November 2008

A system with customers demanding service is observed at equally spaced points in time. Two types of service can be applied and the maximum number of customers the system can accommodate is L. The probability for an arrival of a customer per period is assumed to be λ, and the probability to finish its service in one period will be μk (k = 1, 2). Different costs are imposed on the system for using a certain type of service as well as for a customer lost. The implementation of a particular service policy generates a Markov process. The policy space structure and its relationship to the variants of the system (costs, probability to finish service in a unit of time, and arrivals) is presented. The analysis shows that it is possible to reduce the number of policies to be considered from 2L+1 to L + 2, and a simple algorithm is proposed for choosing the optimal policy.
A Suggested Behavioral Approach to Cost-Benefit Analysis
Authors: Spier Leo 
Published: November 2008

Whenever problems arise from differences of opinion, there probably exists a lack of understanding of the behavioral situations that contributed to the problems. In his interaction with others, man passes from a level of ignorance to one of awareness and seldom reaches a level of understanding. Without that understanding, however, there is no common premise for resolving problems either with regard to methods or results. Today's executive faces issues that deal not only with the familiar technical business decisions but, more significantly, with related labor, social and environmental responsibilities, and political implications both at home and abroad. Consequently, he must be equipped with the essential tools for analysis of complex behavioral interactions as a requisite to effective application of quantitative techniques. The objective here is to develop a systems approach to behavior by building a common analytical premise. This is done (1) by showing consistency between internal need and environmental resources as determinants of behavior, (2) by establishing values as explanations of these initiating forces, and (3) by then letting these values serve as standards of conduct for man's individual and group personality patterns as end-products of behavior. The basic hypothesis is that a triadic paradigm of unique combinations of need-resource qualities generates corresponding actions and interactions among individuals which are observable in the personalities defined by psychoanalysts. The relationship permits a theoretical classification of behavior patterns for identification, prediction, and resolution of problems within the specific contexts of need and environment that govern man's actions. Through this approach, the manager gains a systematic tool for behavioral analysis on an integrated basis, somewhat like the economic concept of pure competition serving as a reference parameter against which reality becomes a measurable entity. Many salient features had to be condensed in this paper, permitting only a symbolic application of the behavioral theory to cost-benefit analysis of the war in Vietnam. However, present working papers using nonmetric multi-dimensional scaling, factor analyses, and clustering techniques already indicate the applicability of such a behavioral framework.
A Language for Organization Design: Part II
Authors: Ansoff H. I. , Brandenburg R. G. 
Published: November 2008

This paper develops a language for designing the structure of a purposive organization so as to maximize organizational performance potential for achieving given objectives. Four categories of performance attributes are specified, each contributing to the particular objectives an organization pursues in seeking maximum return from the resources it employs: steady-state efficiency, operating responsiveness, strategic responsiveness, structural responsiveness. A fifth category, decision and information quality criteria, further contributes to organizational success. These five types of criteria, combined with tests of economic and human resource feasibility, are used to select and tailor one of several basic organizational forms to meet the particular needs of a firm. Basic organizational forms, observable in business practice, analyzed with respect to the above performance attributes, include: centralized functional form, decentralized divisional form, project management form, innovative form. Several variations on these forms, which have been used in business, are listed along with conditions for the applicability of each, reflecting the need for individual firms to adapt basic structures to suit their distinctive requirements. Major steps in the logic of the overall design process are specified.
Decision-Making in a Fuzzy Environment
Authors: Bellman R. E. , Zadeh L. A. 
Published: November 2008

By decision-making in a fuzzy environment is meant a decision process in which the goals and/or the constraints, but not necessarily the system under control, are fuzzy in nature. This means that the goals and/or the constraints constitute classes of alternatives whose boundaries are not sharply defined. An example of a fuzzy constraint is: “The cost of A should not be substantially higher than α,” where α is a specified constant. Similarly, an example of a fuzzy goal is: “x should be in the vicinity of x0 ,” where x0 is a constant. The italicized words are the sources of fuzziness in these examples. Fuzzy goals and fuzzy constraints can be defined precisely as fuzzy sets in the space of alternatives. A fuzzy decision, then, may be viewed as an intersection of the given goals and constraints. A maximizing decision is defined as a point in the space of alternatives at which the membership function of a fuzzy decision attains its maximum value. The use of these concepts is illustrated by examples involving multistage decision processes in which the system under control is either deterministic or stochastic. By using dynamic programming, the determination of a maximizing decision is reduced to the solution of a system of functional equations. A reverse-flow technique is described for the solution of a functional equation arising in connection with a decision process in which the termination time is defined implicitly by the condition that the process stops when the system under control enters a specified set of states in its state space.
A Simple CPM Time-Cost Tradeoff Algorithm
Authors: Siemens Nicolai 
Published: November 2008

This article describes an algorithm for efficiently shortening the duration of a project when the expected project duration exceeds a predetermined limit. The problem consists of determining which activities to expedite and by what amount. The objective is to minimize the cost of the project. This algorithm is considerably less complex than the analytic methods currently available. Because of its inherent simplicity, the algorithm is ideally suited for hand computation and also is suitable for computer solution. Solutions derived by the algorithm were compared with linear programming results. These comparisons revealed that the algorithm solutions are either (a) equally good or (b) nearly the same as the solutions obtained by more complex analytic methods which require a computer. With this method the CPM time-cost tradeoff problem is solved without access to a computer, thereby making this planning tool available to managers who otherwise would find implementation impractical.
Three Pricing Policies for a Multi-Product Multi-National Company
Authors: Rutenberg David P. 
Published: November 2008

A price leader must formulate list prices every time he introduces a new product line (fairly frequently in a technologically developing industry). This is not easy. When the company is multi-national, pricing policy becomes further complicated by the issues of centralization versus autonomy of the national subsidiaries, and three pricing schemes are encountered in practice. Scheme 1. The price of an item is the same around the world, except that the customers absorb freight plus import duty. Very simple price coordination and auditing results from this policy. Scheme 2. National prices for the line equal an optimally determined national weighting factor multiplied by a set of benchmark prices. Scheme 3. The subsidiaries can take advantage of local competitive climates with no fixed requirement that prices be coordinated across the nations. For each pricing scheme the overall profit equals the model profit minus administrative costs. The three schemes are sequenced in order of their model profits, which is also their likely administrative cost sequence. We shall compute their comparative model profitabilities so as to have bonds against which to gauge administrative costs. A base case is presupposed. Adjustments to prices and to marketing budgets induce changes in the quantity sold, and hence in the production cost. The profit function is approximated as quadratic in the control variables of price and marketing budget, so that optimal adjustments can be calculated by little more than inverting a partitioned matrix.