ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.49

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractIn this paper, the authors provide a commentary on current trends in management science. This commentary is based largely on US experience gleaned from published material. This material indicates that the environment of management science is rapidly changing. Personal computers, end-user computing, the information centre, other information system elements and the general competitive state of many US organizations provide significant changes. Opportunities for interdisciplinary activity, through decision support systems, expert systems, strategic planning and material requirements planning, exist even more than in the past. This opportunity for growth may occur through‘self-starters’. Self-starters are line managers who develop their own management science projects without direction from above or the direct assistance of management science staff. The current environment, the decentralization of management science and the birth of self-starters are discussed, as well as implications of this trend.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.50

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractOf all the strategic planning and decision-making a corporation undertakes, a merger or acquisition of another company is one of the most important and complex. The complexity is due not only to the volume of accounting, finance, marketing and management factors that need to be considered, but also to synergistic factors that are not adequately incorporated in current acquisition planning models. This paper presents a goal-programming modelling approach to deal with the problem of strategic acquisition planning for mergers, acquisitions or joint ventures. A goal-programming model is developed and applied to illustrate its use in acquisition decision-making. The results of the paper demonstrate the model's informational efficiency of application and unique ability to include synergistic decision-making factors.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.51

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractThe planning and organization of computer networks give rise to many location problems. These may be split into those primarily concerned with placement of hardware and those with software. Here a broad overview of location and hardware components is given, together with a brief appraisal of the‘state of the art’for various problems.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.52

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractThis paper presents a simple method of determining optimal screening policies for detecting immunity to Hepatitis A virus in travellers to areas of high endemicity. The method is constrained by the requirement that screening policies be kept simple in order to ensure their wide implementation.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.53

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractBethlehem Steel's plant at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania uses a computer-based mill-providing procedure to plan ingot requirements for the production of structural shapes and pilings. When not enough hot steel is available to meet all the ingot requirements, cold steel ingots from inventory must be substituted in order to meet the production plan. A computer system was developed that dynamically selects cold ingots to use when hot steel is not available. This system selects cold ingots based first on ingot-selection priorities, and secondly, within priorities, on several criteria. An approach was developed that assigns a penalty to each feasible cold ingot such that the priorities and multiple criteria are addressed by simply ranking the ingots based on their penalty values. Ingots are selected from the top of the ranked list, and the results are consistently acceptable to the steel-providers at the Bethlehem plant. The system improves yield and reduces material-handling costs.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.54

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractA firm's logistics cost, including shipping and inventory-carrying, is a substantial percentage of its sales. Nevertheless, typical inventory-control methods ignore or insufficiently represent the shipping cost. This paper describes a recursive algorithm that determines the reorder cycle-time that minimizes total logistics cost. It allows for a realistic accounting of shipping cost, which is modelled here as a function of shipping distance and weight. The algorithm uses a relaxation procedure to identify a suitable initial approximation to the optimal order cycle-time and then, through a series of recursive steps, moves to the optimal result. We demonstrate the algorithm with a single item, with a group of items that share a common order cycle, and with multi-items when item demands are random variables. Experience with this algorithm indicates that it converges to the optimal result in a very few steps.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.55

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractIn decision and risk analysis, it is common to use discrete probability distributions to approximate uncertain events with continuous outcomes. This paper discusses how these approximations may be selected. A class of approximations based on a modification to Taguchi's work on tolerance analysis is shown to be optimal under assumptions of independent uncertainties with normally distributed outcomes. The approximation procedure is shown to be robust in many other situations and is extremely easy to use in practice. We also show how the approximation may be integrated into the process of subjective probability estimation by a‘subject-matter expert’.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.56

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractWe consider the problem of computing the density function of the completion time of PERT stochastic networks. An activity-time distribution is suggested which is stable to maximization and close to the beta distribution. Thus classical network-reducing methods, e.g. Martin's algorithm, can be essentially simplified.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.57

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

AbstractThis paper presents an alternative approach to an earlier model developed by other authors to formulate a problem of sequencingNjobs onMmachines in a standard flow-shop. The objectives of the model are to minimize makespan and flow-time. The new formulation involves substantially fewer variables, at the expense of a rise in the number of constraints. Practical limitations of both approaches are discussed.

ISSN:0160-5682    

DOI:10.1057/jors.1989.58

出版商:Taylor&Francis    

年代:1989

数据来源: Taylor