Practical Management Science: Spreadsheet Modeling and Applications [Hardcover]

Wayne L. Winston (Author), S. Christian Albright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0534371353 | ISBN-13: 978-0534371357 | Edition: 2nd

In the Second Edition of their popular text, Wayne Winston and Chris Albright continue to build on their highly successful approach of teaching by example while using spreadsheets to model a wide variety of business problems. The authors show the relevance of topics through numerous examples of real-world implementation of management science. The ideal solution for people who want to teach by example and who want to solve real problems with spreadsheets and professional spreadsheet add-ins, this text is always interesting, in part due to the useful cases added to this edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Prose is casual and understandable; not stuffy or full of jargon. Problems are realistic and motivating for students, but solvable. Working through problems within a spreadsheet provided by the authors along side text discussion is invaluable for the learning experience."

"More simplistic and to the point. Not to much extra material above and beyond the stuent's level. I also enjoyed the more focused approach toward simulations!! Good business examples are used with nice introductory paragraphs for each chapter. The CD that accompanies the book contains wonderful solution sets and useful supplemental programs." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Wayne L. Winston is Professor of Operations and Decision Technologies in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, where he has taught since 1975. Wayne received his B.S. degree in Mathematics from MIT and his Ph.D. degree in Operations Research from Yale. He has written the successful textbooks OPERATIONS RESEARCH: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS, SIMULATION MODELING WITH @RISK, DATA ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING, DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS, SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS, AND FINANCIAL MODELS USING SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION. Wayne has published over 20 articles in leading journals and has won many teaching awards, including the school-wide MBA award four times. His current interest is in showing how spreadsheet models can be used to solve business problems in all disciplines, particularly in finance and marketing.

S. Christian Albright received his B.S. degree in mathematics from Stanford in 1968 and his Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford in 1972. Since then, he has been teaching in the Operations and Decision Technologies Department in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He has taught courses in management science, computer simulation, and statistics to all levels of business students: undergraduates, MBAs, and doctoral students. He has published over twenty articles in leading operations research journals in the area of applied probability, and he has authored other successful South-Western titles, including DATA ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING, DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS, PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT SCIENCE, and SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS. His current interest is in spreadsheet modeling, including development of VBA applications in Excel?. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 900 pages
• Publisher: South-Western College Pub; 2nd edition (July 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0534371353
• ISBN-13: 978-0534371357
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #95 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Management Science

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as the first edition, July 6, 2001

By 

Kirk S. Johnson (Batavia, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Management Science: Spreadsheet Modeling and Applications (Hardcover)

I own both editions where I belive the 1st edition is better than their second. I don't particular like their new approach in teaching network modeling; it's non-intuitive. The first edition was a bit more 'logical' and easier to set up than the approach use in their 2nd edition. Secondly, their use of the Palisade @Risk is definitely a good choice, but the time lock (1 year if registered online) somewhat deflates the enthusiasm knowing that at some future date your software will cease to work. I bought the @129 upgrade but jumped through hoops with palisades (their authorization code did not undo the time lock and tech support argued that it was a publisher issue--in the long run they discovered a problem with the software where it was not taking the time lock off the application as designed.) I do like the 2nd edition's choice of larger fonts and the broader examples. I am still yet disappointed that unlike many other quality text books, the text does not include answers to 'odd' or even selected problems. I don't think the authors realize that their text is used by professionals looking to develop workplace skills and are not necessarily enrolled in a formal academic setting. Nevertheless, I bought the second edition because I think management science is a terribly valuable skill to have and that the authors have published the best book in the area of MS.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Master Modeling employing Excel, September 23, 2005

By 

Flavio Cipparrone "Opt_Prof" (Sao Paulo, Brasil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Management Science: Spreadsheet Modeling and Applications (with CD-ROM Update) (Hardcover)

This book focuses on several management science modeling problems and explains clearly how to implement them with Excel.

Winston teaches you how to employ standards (colors, borders, etc) to make your spreadsheet more professional. You will learn much about Excel even if you are not interested in management science models.

Contrary to Optimization and Operations Research books, it does not worry about algorithm details, being directed mainly to develop the student modeling skills.

Then, if your goal is to find a text that contains excel-based ways of solving managerial problems, and you are not concerned with solver details (simplex method, transport algorithms, nonlinear programming algorithms, interior point methods) this book is for you.

Another information: Chris Albright has a Modeling book directed to people that want to learn how to use VBA in modeling, that is, if you are a "want to be advanced" Excel user. He says that his VBA book is the natural next step to "Practical Management Science".

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Pleased, August 11, 2000

By 

steve_from_spokane (Everett, Wa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practical Management Science: Spreadsheet Modeling and Applications (Hardcover)

I am a business unit manager who frequently purchases books and software to maintain my level of competence in operations management, and I recently purchased the second edition of this book, copyright 2001. I have found it to be a great value, and agree with the reviewers the earlier edition who found it to be a very fine text on Operations Research. It comes with the standard version of Palisade's Decision Tools software, which is just outstanding. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone. Additionally, there's an option to upgrade to a fully licensed edition of this software at a greatly reduced price; the student version that comes with the book is fully functional, but is only licensed one year for students, 30 days for professionals. Microsoft doesn't give their software away for free either.