Decision Technology

The best way to prepare today's business students for tackling real world problems is to teach them to use real world business tools. That is the underlying premise behind the new text Decision Technology: Modeling, Software, and Application, by Bob Nydick and Matt Liberatore.

"We have to empower students to identify, model, and solve practical business problems themselves," states Liberatore. With that in mind, the two Villanova professors set out to change the way introductory management science is taught to today's MBAs. Their text is designed for a course focusing on not just learning management science techniques, but applying them. By using popular commercial software packages, the students gain experience with the actual tools they can apply when they encounter real problems in the workplace.

The text comes complete with a CD containing software packages that correspond with the three man-agement science concepts covered: LINGO for math programming, Expert Choice for decision analysis, and Extend for simulation. Numerous examples for each package are also included on the CD and discussed in detail in the text.

Nydick and Liberatore chose to include LINGO for the mathematical programming portion of the text after years of experience teaching with it in their own classes. "A major advantage of the LINGO modeling language is that it allows users to express a series of similar constraints in a single statement. These statements can be thought of as building blocks that enable the student to model increasingly complex and realistic problems," explains Nydick. "As a result, the LINGO modeling language plays a pivotal role in developing the student's modeling ability."

Decision Technology by Bob Nydick and Matt Liberatore, is published by Wiley Higher Education (ISBN 0-471-41712-2).

For general information on LINGO capabilities, visit our product pages. You can download a demo version of our software from our download page or order a full blown version directly from our order page.
Return to the main Newsletter page