Book Selection

of this group of their Management Services colleagues this book will be a valuable initiation. 1. A. SMART Systems Analysis for Engineers and Managers. R. DE NEUFVILLE and J. H. STAFFORD. McGraw Hill, London, 1974. 353 pp. £3.95. This book contains little new material but is a synthesis of topics which the authors claim form the new field of engineering systems analysis. The fields drawn on are Operational Research (linear and dynamic programming) microeconomics (marginal analysis), welfare economics (concepts of Value and consumers surplus), capital budgeting (inducing discounted cash flow) and econometrics. There is an additional chapter on systems models. Although the authors claim that this is an introductory text, there is a highly mathematical treatment of linear programming, dynamic programming (particularly obscure) and econometrics. A prior knowledge of matrix algebra would be useful, particularly for the last mentioned. The chapter on systems models is too abstract for an introductory text. The remaining chapters (mainly economics) fulfil the objective somewhat better, although I am not convinced that techniques from economics can stand alone as do individual OR techniques. Finally it is unfortunate that the authors did not conclude with a chapter justifying this particular synthesis. In conclusion this is not a book for self study, although I note that it is an Open University set book. It is to be hoped that their course overcomes the weaknesses of this text. G. J. EVANS

Production and Operations Management. (3rd Edition) RAYMOND R. MAYER. McGraw Hill, U.S.A., 1975. 658 pp. £8.25. This book is aimed primarily at business and engineering students. The preface stresses that "the emphasis is placed only on fundamentals". To a large extent this aim is achieved. The book deals with facilities planning and layout, materials handling, capital expenditure, inventory, production and quality control and work methods, measurement and incentives. In general the book meets its objectives and presents an admirable overview of the topics. It is well indexed and the expositions are clear and concise. Furthermore, most of the sections are not demanding of a particularly high level of either mathematics or statistics. However, for a book that is aimed at students it provides 785

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Operational Research Quarterly Vol. 27 No. 3, ii

little guidance for further reading. The extensive bibliography is not well related to the text nor are the chapters on inventory, production and quality control entirely satisfactory for the same reason. A thorough review of all approaches is obviously neither possible not desirable in such a book, but no indication is given that other methods exist. There is furthermore no treatment of the problems of maintenance and plant replacement. The span and emphasis of this book outweigh these failings. Too many text books treat inventory, production and quality control problems in vacuo. Many OR and DP practitioners could find this book capable of giving them a useful insight into the practical problems facing the management that they · are advising. C. MALPAS-SANDS

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