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Preface

elcome to the second Europe, Middle East and Africa Edition of An Intro-
W duction to Management Science by Anderson, Sweeney, Williams and
Wisniewski.
The first edition of this text was based on the best-selling US version and
deliberately set out to adapt and tailor the US version for a non-US university
audience. The content was adapted to better suit university teaching of quantitative
management science in the UK, across Europe, Africa and the Middle East; the
focus was given a more global and international feel and cases and examples were
internationalized.
The first edition has been extremely successful in its target markets and this
edition has further tailored and adapted the content to give broad international
appeal.

A quick tour of the text

An Introduction to Management Science continues to be very much applications
oriented and to use the problem-scenario approach that has proved to be very
popular and successful. This approach means that we describe a typical business
scenario or problem faced by many organizations and managers. This might relate to
allocating staff to tasks or projects; determining production over the next planning
period; deciding on the best use of a limited budget; forecasting sales over the
coming time period and so on. We explore and explain how particular management
science techniques and models can be used to help managers and decision makers
decide what to do in that particular scenario or situation. This approach means that
students not only develop a good technical understanding of a particular technique
or model but also understand how it contributes to the decision-making process.
In this new edition we have taken advantage of the Internet and world-wide web
to make some chapters available online. The chapters that remain in the textbook
itself cover the topics most commonly-covered on undergraduate and postgraduate
management science programmes. Chapters available online cover topics which,
although useful and important, are less frequently included.
Chapter 1 provides an overall introduction to the text; the origins and develop-
ments in management science are outlined; there are detailed examples of areas in
business and management where management science is frequently applied; there is
a detailed discussion of the wider management science methodology and a section
on the modelling process itself.
Chapters 2–6 cover the core topic of Linear Programming (LP). The technique is
introduced and graphical solution methods developed. This is followed by the
development of sensitivity analysis. The Simplex method is then introduced for large
scale problem solution and full coverage of simplex based sensitivity is covered.
There is a full chapter on applications of LP grouped around five main areas of
business application.
Chapter 7 extends the coverage of optimization to look at techniques related to
transshipment, assignment and transportation problems. Solution methods for each
class of problem are given. Chapter 8 introduces the network model and examines
the shortest route problem, the minimal spanning tree problem and the maximal flow

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