Data, Models, and Decisions: The Fundamentals of Management Science

The paperback version is only available for international sales only. This book represents a departure from existing textbooks. Rather than covering methodology, the book introduces decision support systems through real world applications, and uses spreadsheets to model and solve problems. It uses management science techniques (statistics, simulation, probabilistic modeling and optimization), but only as tools to facilitate problem solving. The book embraces George Dantzig's dictum as its "The final test of any theory is its capacity to solve the problems which originated it." The book is used in the core MBA program at MIT's, Sloan School of Management for the class "Data, Models and Decisions". It is used in over ten universities in both core and elective classes, including Stanford University, Chicago's graduate school of Business, Babson College, among several others. The book contains many real business cases from the authors consulting experience. There are Powerpoint presentation slides for lecture material, a solution manual and other instructor resources available that can be obtained by contacting the authors directly ( dbertsim@mit.edu , rfreund@mit.edu )