The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets: Management Science, Spreadsheet Engineering, and Modeling Craft [Hardcover]

Stephen G. Powell (Author), Kenneth R. Baker (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471209376 | ISBN-13: 978-0471209379 | Publication Date: August 21, 2003

Successful business modeling is much more than a technical discipline; it's an art. And as in most professional disciplines, you can tell the experts apart from the novices by the creativity they bring to the craft. That's why Steve Powell and Ken Baker's THE ART OF MODELING WITH SPREADSHEETS covers spreadsheet engineering, management science techniques, and those essential craft skills needed to develop real expertise in business modeling. Features: * Balanced and streamlined coverage of spreadsheet engineering, management science techniques, and modeling craft. * The CD-ROM packaged with this text features all of the spreadsheets referred to in the text, as well as three software tools of special importance to business analysts: Premium Solver, Crystal Ball, and Sensitivity Toolkit (featuring four sensitivity tools)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Develop state-of-the-art modeling skills

Successful business modeling is much more than a technical discipline; it’s an art. And as in most professional disciplines, you can tell the experts apart from the novices by the creativity they bring to the craft. Now with Steve Powell and Ken Baker’s The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets, you can master the technical knowledge as well as those essential craft skills needed to develop real expertise in business modeling.

You’ll learn:

• Effective methods for designing, building, and testing models, and for performing model-based analyses;
• Non-technical, craft skills that expert modelers commonly employ, such as abstracting a situation, debugging a model, and translating model results into managerial insights; and
• Standard statistical and management science techniques used in business today, such as data analysis, simulation, and optimization.

Get the tools of the trade!

The CD-ROM packaged wit h t his text features all of the spreadsheets referred to in the text, as well as three software tools of special importance to business analysts:

• Premium Solver
• Crystal Ball
• Sensitivity Toolkit (featuring four sensitivity tools)

About the Author

Steve Powell is Professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. His primary research interest lies in modeling production and service processes, but he has also been active in research energy economics, marketing, and operations. At Tuck, he has developed a variety of courses in management science, including the core Decision Science course and electives in the Art of Modeling, Business Process Redesign, and Applications of Simulation. He originated the Teacher’s Forum column in Interfaces, and has written a number of articles on teaching modeling to practitioners. He organized the Workshop on Teaching Management Science with Spreadsheet in the summer of 1998, and is the Academic Director of a new series of INFORMS workshops on teaching management science. In 2001, he was awarded the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of Operations Research/Management Science Practice.

Ken Baker is a faculty member at Dartmouth College. He is currently Nathaniel Leverone Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business and also Adjunct Professor at the Thayer School of Engineering. At Dartmouth, he has taught courses relating to Decision Science, Manufacturing Management, and Environmental Management. Over the years, much of his teaching and research has dealt with Production Planning and Control, and he is widely known for his textbook, Elements of Sequencing and Scheduling, in addition to a variety of technical articles. He has served as Tuck School’s Associate Dean and directed the Tuck School’s management development programs in the manufacturing area. In 2001, he was named a Fellow of INFORMS’ Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society.

 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (August 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471209376
• ISBN-13: 978-0471209379
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,029,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Obsolete software, April 25, 2007

By 

bob (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets: Management Science, Spreadsheet Engineering, and Modeling Craft (Hardcover)

A once useful entree to the spreadsheet modeling literature, this book is now obsolete. The version listed here is copyrighted 2004 but comes with a CD containing release 2000.2 of Crystal Ball which Decisioneering is no longer event supporting. This old version of the software as well as the Advanced Solver add-in has compatibility problems with Windows XP -not to mention Vista, and Wiley does not stand behind the product. Once I loaded the advanced solver, the solver feature no longer produced optimal solutions.

Extremely disappointing to buy a $90 textbook with obsolete software that causes Excel to malfunction and cannot be updated. Impossible to consider this as a class text book. If the publishers will not keep the product current it should be withdrawn from the market, and reputable vendors should at least WARN buyers, if they choose to continue to market and sell this once useful product.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars nice use of a spreadsheet, April 10, 2005

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets: Management Science, Spreadsheet Engineering, and Modeling Craft (Hardcover)

Powell takes the interesting approach of showing how to model a solution to a problem, and using a spreadsheet as the engine within which to embed the solution. Who would have thought in the 70s, when the first computer spreadsheets arose, that one day they could be applied to this?

Much of the book revolves around the issues of modelling. How to extract this from a problem. Here, this is as in many other texts. But we then see how a spreadsheet can be built up, with the equations that relate a group of input cells to write a value in an output cell, being those that model the solution.

To a computer programmer, this use of a spreadsheet might seem a little confining. After all, shouldn't you write code in some general purpose language like C++ or Java, to do this? But the number of programmers who can do this well is fairly small. Whereas spreadsheets have a far broader audience, even in terms of who is able to program them. That is the audience Powell writes for.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Modelling book, January 11, 2009

By 

IVFarmboy "desertrat" (CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets: Management Science, Spreadsheet Engineering, and Modeling Craft (Hardcover)

I did not care about the software, I use Riskamp (very decently priced software), so I cant judge it by that. I think it is wrong to judge the book by the software anyways but whatever. This book is GREAT and that is from a Project modeler. The authors break it into parts and make it interesting reading. I always continue reading on the areas of my work and I have 20 years experience but that is how you keep fresh. As an independent consultant you dont have a lot of co-workers you can bounce new ideas off so you need to continue to read and learn to obtain new ideas. That is what made this country great by the way, no one accepting the status quo - God I hope we can get back to that...

Well if you are going into the field or are a Modeler than this book will be well worth the time to read.