Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Stair,
1-2
Copyright ©2015 Pearson, Inc.
SOLUTIONS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS
1-1. Quantitative analysis involves the use of mathematical equations or relationships in analyzing
a particular problem. In most cases, the results of quantitative analysis will be one or more numbers
that can be used by managers and decision makers in making better decisions. Calculating rates of
return, financial ratios from a balance sheet and profit and loss statement, determining the number
of units that must be produced in order to break even, and many similar techniques are examples
of quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis involves the investigation of factors in a decision-
making problem that cannot be quantified or stated in mathematical terms. The state of the
economy, current or pending legislation, perceptions about a potential client, and similar situations
reveal the use of qualitative analysis. In most decision-making problems, both quantitative and
qualitative analysis are used. In this book, however, we emphasize the techniques and approaches
of quantitative analysis.
1-2. Quantitative analysis is the scientific approach to managerial decision making. This type of
analysis is a logical and rational approach to making decisions. Emotions, guesswork, and whim
are not part of the quantitative analysis approach. A number of organizations support the use of
the scientific approach: the Institute for Operation Research and Management Science
(INFORMS), Decision Sciences Institute, and Academy of Management.
1-3. The three categories of business analytics are descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive.
Descriptive analytics provides an indication of how things performed in the past. Predictive
analytics uses past data to forecast what will happen in the future. Prescriptive analytics uses
optimization and other models to present better ways for a company to operate to reach goals and
objectives.
1-4. Quantitative analysis is a step-by-step process that allows decision makers to investigate
problems using quantitative techniques. The steps of the quantitative analysis process include
defining the problem, developing a model, acquiring input data, developing a solution, testing the
solution, analyzing the results, and implementing the results. In every case, the analysis begins
with defining the problem. The problem could be too many stockouts, too many bad debts, or
determining the products to produce that will result in the maximum profit for the organization.
After the problems have been defined, the next step is to develop one or more models. These
models could be inventory control models, models that describe the debt situation in the
organization, and so on. Once the models have been developed, the next step is to acquire input
data. In the inventory problem, for example, such factors as the annual demand, the ordering cost,
and the carrying cost would be input data that are used by the model developed in the preceding
step. In determining the products to produce in order to maximize profits, the input data could be
such things as the profitability for all the different products, the amount of time that is available at
the various production departments that produce the products, and the amount of time it takes for
each product to be produced in each production department. The next step is developing the
solution. This requires manipulation of the model in order to determine the best solution. Next, the
results are tested, analyzed, and implemented. In the inventory control problem, this might result
in determining and implementing a policy to order a certain amount of inventory at specified
intervals. For the problem of determining the best products to produce, this might mean testing,
analyzing, and implementing a decision to produce a certain quantity of given products.
1-3
Copyright ©2015 Pearson, Inc.
1-5. Although the formal study of quantitative analysis and the refinement of the tools and
techniques of the scientific method have occurred only in the recent past, quantitative approaches
to decision making have been in existence since the beginning of time. In the early 1900s,
Frederick W. Taylor developed the principles of the scientific approach. During World War II,
quantitative analysis was intensified and used by the military. Because of the success of these
techniques during World War II, interest continued after the war.
1-6. Model types include the scale model, physical model, and schematic model (which is a
picture or drawing of reality). In this book, mathematical models are used to describe mathematical
relationships in solving quantitative problems.
In this question, the student is asked to develop two mathematical models. The student might
develop a number of models that relate to finance, marketing, accounting, statistics, or other fields.
The purpose of this part of the question is to have the student develop a mathematical relationship
between variables with which the student is familiar.
1-7. Input data can come from company reports and documents, interviews with employees and
other personnel, direct measurement, and sampling procedures. For many problems, a number of
different sources are required to obtain data, and in some cases it is necessary to obtain the same
data from different sources in order to check the accuracy and consistency of the input data. If the
input data are not accurate, the results can be misleading and very costly to the organization. This
concept is called “garbage in, garbage out”.
1-8. Implementation is the process of taking the solution and incorporating it into the company or
organization. This is the final step in the quantitative analysis approach, and if a good job is not
done with implementation, all of the effort expended on the previous steps can be wasted.
1-9. Sensitivity analysis and postoptimality analysis allow the decision maker to determine how
the final solution to the problem will change when the input data or the model change. This type
of analysis is very important when the input data or model has not been specified properly. A
sensitive solution is one in which the results of the solution to the problem will change drastically
or by a large amount with small changes in the data or in the model. When the model is not
sensitive, the results or solutions to the model will not change significantly with changes in the
input data or in the model. Models that are very sensitive require that the input data and the model
itself be thoroughly tested to make sure that both are very accurate and consistent with the problem
statement.
1-10. There are a large number of quantitative terms that may not be understood by managers.
Examples include PERT, CPM, simulation, the Monte Carlo method, mathematical programming,
EOQ, and so on. The student should explain each of the four terms selected in his or her own
words.
1-11. Many quantitative analysts enjoy building mathematical models and solving them to find
the optimal solution to a problem. Others enjoy dealing with other technical aspects, for example,
data analysis and collection, computer programming, or computations. The implementation
process can involve political aspects, convincing people to trust the new approach or solutions, or
the frustrations of getting a simple answer to work in a complex environment. Some people with
strong analytical skills have weak interpersonal skills; since implementation challenges these
“people” skills, it will not appeal to everyone. If analysts become involved with users and with the
implementation environment and can understand “where managers are coming from,” they can
1-4
Copyright ©2015 Pearson, Inc.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
CHAPTER II.
THE INVENTION OF PRINTING AND THE WORK OF THE
FIRST PRINTERS OF HOLLAND AND GERMANY.
1440-1528.
“
FOUR men, Gutenberg, Columbus, Luther, and Copernicus,
stand at the dividing line of the Middle Ages, and serve as boundary
stones marking the entrance of mankind into a higher and finer
epoch of its development.”[421]
It would be difficult to say which one of the four has made the
largest contribution to this development or has done the most to lift
up the spirit of mankind and to open for men the doors to the new
realms that were in readiness. The Genoese seaman and discoverer
opens new realms to our knowledge and imagination, leads Europe
from the narrow restrictions of the Middle Ages out into the vast
space of Western oceans, and in adding to the material realms
controlled by civilisation, widens still more largely the range of its
thought and fancy. The Reformer of Wittenberg, in breaking the
bonds which had chained the spirits of his fellow-men and in
securing for them again their rights as individual Christians,
conquers for them a spiritual realm and brings them into renewed
relations with their Creator. The great astronomer shatters, through
his discoveries, the fixed and petty conceptions of the universe
which had ruled the minds of mankind, and in bringing to them fresh
light on the nature and extent of created things, widens at the same
time their whole understanding of themselves and of duty. The
citizen of Mayence may claim to have unchained intelligence and
given to it wings. He utilised lead no longer as a death-bringing ball,
but in the form of life-quickening letters which were to bring before
thousands of minds the teachings of the world’s thinkers. Each one
of the four had his part in bringing to the world light, knowledge, and
development.
At the time when the art of printing finally took shape in the mind of
Gutenberg, the direction of literary and intellectual interests of
Germany rested, as we have seen, largely with Italy. The fact,
however, that the new art had its birthplace, not in Florence, which
was at that time the centre of the literary activities of Europe, but in
Mayence, heretofore a town which had hardly been connected at all
with literature, and the further fact that the printing-presses were
carrying on their work in Germany for nearly fifteen years before two
printers, themselves Germans, set up the first press in Italy,
exercised, of necessity, an important influence in inciting literary
activities throughout Germany and in the relations borne by
Germany to the scholarship of the world.
The details of the life and early work of Gutenberg are at best but
fragmentary, and have been a subject of much discussion. It is not
necessary, for the purpose of this treatise, to give detailed
consideration to the long series of controversies as to the respective
claims of Gutenberg of Mayence, of Koster of Haarlem, or of other
competitors, as to the measure of credit to be assigned to each in
the original discovery or of the practical development of the the
printing-press. It seems in any case evident that whatever minds
elsewhere were at that time puzzling over the same problem, it was
the good fortune of Gutenberg to make the first practical application
of the printing-press to the production of impressions from movable
type, while it was certainly from Mayence that the art spread
throughout the cities, first of Germany, and later of Italy and France.
It is to be borne in mind (and I speak here for the non-technical
reader) that, as indicated in the above reference, the distinction and
important part of the invention of Gutenberg was, not the production
of a press for the multiplication of impressions, but the use of
movable type and the preparation of the form from which the
impressions were struck off. The art of printing from blocks, since
classified as xylographic printing, had been practised in certain
quarters of Europe for fifty years or more before the time of
Gutenberg, and if Europe had had communication with China,
xylography might have been introduced four or five centuries earlier.
With the block-books, the essential thing was the illustrations, and
what text or letterpress accompanied these was usually limited to a
few explanatory or descriptive words engraved on the block, above,
beneath or around the picture. Occasionally, however, as in the Ars
Moriendi, there were entire pages of text engraved, like the designs,
on the solid block. The earlier engraving was done on hard wood,
but, later, copper was also employed. It is probable that the block-
books originated in the Netherlands, and it is certain that in such
towns as Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, the art was developed
more rapidly than elsewhere, so that during the first half of the
fifteenth century, the production of wood engravings and of books
made up of engravings (printed only on one side, and accompanied
by a few words of text), began to form an important article of trade.
The subjects of these designs were for the most part Biblical, or at
least religious. One of the earlier of the block-book publications and
probably the most characteristic specimen of the class, is the volume
known as the Biblia Pauperum. This was a close imitation of a
manuscript book that had for five or six centuries been popular as a
work of religious instruction. It had been composed about 850, by S.
Ausgarius, a monk of Corbie, who afterwards became Bishop of
Hamburg. The scriptorium established by him at Corbie was said to
have been the means of preserving from destruction a number of
classics, including the Annals of Tacitus.[422] The use, five centuries
later, as one of the first productions of the printing-press, of the
monk’s own composition, may be considered as a fitting
acknowledgement of the service thus rendered by him to the world’s
literature. Examples of manuscript copies of the Biblia Pauperum are
in existence in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, in Munich, in the
British Museum, and elsewhere, and there is no difficulty in
comparing these with the printed copies produced in the
Netherlands, which are also represented in these collections.
It is probable that Laurence Koster of Haarlem, whose name is,
later, associated with printing from movable type, was himself an
engraver of block-books. Humphreys is, in fact, inclined to believe
that the first block-book edition of the Biblia Pauperum was actually
Koster’s work, basing this opinion on the similarity of the
compositions and of their arrangement to those of the Speculum
Humanæ Salvationis, which was the first work printed from movable
type, and the production of which is now generally credited to
Koster.[423] The Biblia Pauperum was printed from blocks in
Germany as late as 1475, but before that date an edition had been
printed from movable type by Pfister in Bamberg.
As has been pointed out by many of the writers on the subject, the
so-called invention of printing was not so much the result of an
individual inspiration, as the almost inevitable consequence of a long
series of experiments and of partial processes which had been
conducted in various places where the community was interesting
itself in the multiplication of literature.
If, as is probably the case, the first book printed from movable type
is to be credited to Koster, it remains none the less the case that
Gutenberg’s process must have been worked out for itself, and that
the German possessed, what the Hollander appears to have lacked,
not merely the persistence and the practical understanding required
to produce a single book, but the power to overcome obstacles and
to instruct others, and was thus able to establish the new art on a
lasting foundation.
The claims of the Hollanders under which Koster is to be regarded
as the first printer, or at least (bearing in mind the Chinese
precedents in the tenth century) the first European printer, from
movable type, claims which Humphreys accepts as well founded, are
in substance as follows: Laurence Koster was born, somewhere in
Holland, about 1370, and died in Haarlem about 1440. He is
believed to have made his first experiments with movable wooden
types about 1426, and to have worked with metal types about ten
years later. The principal of the earlier authorities concerning
Koster’s career is a certain Hadrian Junius, who completed, in 1569,
a history of Holland, which was published in 1588. He speaks of
Koster as being a man of an honourable family, in which the office of
Sacristan (custos, Coster or Koster) was hereditary, and he
describes in detail the development of the invention of type, from the
cutting of pieces of beech-bark into the form of letters, to the final
production of the metal fonts. Junius goes on to relate the method
under which Koster’s first book (from type), Speculum Humanæ
Salvationis, was printed, in 1430. This book, the origin of which is not
known, had for many years been popular among the Benedictines,
and few of their monasteries were without a copy. As a result of this
popularity, many examples of the manuscript copies have been
preserved, some of which are in the Arundel collection in the British
Museum. Zani says that the Speculum was compiled for the
assistance of poor preachers, and in support of this view he quotes
certain lines, which may serve also as an example of Latinity and of
the general style: