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32 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

The Edit Menu
After a new problem has been solved, you may want to make one or more mod-
ifications to the problem before resolving. The Edit menu provides the option to
display the problem and then make revisions in the problem before solving or saving.
In the linear and integer programming modules, the Edit menu also includes options
to change the problem size by adding or deleting variables and adding or deleting
constraints. Similar options to change the problem size are provided in the Edit
menu of the transportation and assignment modules.

The Solution Menu
The Solution menu provides three options.

Solve This option solves the current problem and displays the solution on the
screen.

Print Once the solution is on the screen, the Print option sends the solution to a
printer.

Save As Text File Once the solution is on the screen, the Save As Text File option
enables the solution to be saved as a text file. The text file can be accessed later by a
word processor so that the solution output may be displayed as part of a solution
report.

Advice About Data Input

Any time a new problem is selected, the appropriate module will provide dialogue
boxes and forms for describing the features of the problem and for entering data.
When using The Management Scientist, you may find the following data input
suggestions helpful.
1 Do not enter commas (,) with your input data. For example, the value 104,000
should be entered with the six digits: 104000.
2 Do not enter the dollar sign ($) for profit or cost data. For example, a cost of
$20.00 should be entered as 20.
3 Do not enter the percent sign (%) if percentage is requested. For example,
25% should be entered as 25, not 25% or .25.
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2
4 Occasionally, a model may be formulated with fractional values such as / 4 , / 3 ,
5
/ 6 , and so on. The data input for The Management Scientist must be in
1
decimal form. The fraction / 4 can be entered as .25. However, fractions such as
2 5
/ 3 and / 6 have repeating decimal forms. In these cases, we recommend the
convention of rounding to five places such as .66667 and .83333.
5 Finally, we recommend that in general you attempt to scale extremely large
input data so that smaller numbers may be input and operated on by the
computer. For example, costs such as $2 500 000 may be scaled to 2.5 with the
understanding that the data used in the problem reflect millions of dollars.

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