Knowledge that Transforms

In the management science of tomorrow, I predict, there will be a great growth of these and other techniques whereby practitioners and scientists will inform, stimulate and influence each other. One of the most fruitful functions of this new Institute, in my opinion, would be to put some of its intellect and energy into developing such techniques. One of the most important management sciences of tomorrow could well be the science that joins management science and management.

Economists and psychologists are interested in the theory of human decision making behavior. So are neurophysiologists and psychoanalysts. So also are statisticians, game theorists, cyberneticians, information theorists, operations researchers and many others among the management scientists.

My topic in this panel discussion on management science today is the status of research on mathematical solution of programming problems. The word “programming” refers here to optimal allocation, as in machine loading, or to optimal scheduling of one kind or another. “Optimal allocation” may be taken as referring to static problems, while “optimal scheduling” refers to dynamic problems, varying over time. The static and dynamic problems are, at the present stage of management science development, generally speaking, studied by means of the same techniques.