Customer Reviews

The Science of Decision Making: A Problem-Based Approach Using Excel

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Professor Denardo's textbook is written in absolutely the most crystal clear way possible and is thus not only completely accessible to beginners. It can also serve as a bridge for those with less mathematical background into OR and economics at the higher mathematical level.

The chapters on linear programming at the beginning of the book show the reader the intuitive reasoning of the simplex method. In the third-to-last chapter of the book, Denardo introduces the requisite matrix algebra (again his exposition of this is a complete gem for someone who didn't quite "get" linear algebra before reading this book), and then he shows the actual algorithm for simplex method in the second-to-last chapter. the final chapter is about LP duality and its extensions to things like general equilibrium, the Max-flow-min-cut, and other applications. Denardo's extensive use of excel in these chapters is done in a way that is a huge aid to the student's understanding.

I should also note that the chapters on game theory, integer programming, and dynamic programming are excellent for the introductory student.

My one complaint is that this book needs a sequel. Denardo is an excellent writer, and I would love to see an advanced general OR text, which uses the last chapters of this introductory book as a point of departure.

I'm not a fan of this book. The explanations are long and somewhat confusing. If you spend hours and hours wading through sections you might figure stuff out, but it's no straightforward. Also, the cd that comes with the book only works with older versions of Excel (2003). I think I used this book maybe 3 times for a class I took and it didn't help at all.