What is Management Science?
Management Science is concerned with developing and applying models and concepts that may prove useful in helping to illuminate management issues and solve managerial problems. The models used can often be represented mathematically, but sometimes computer-based, visual or verbal representations are used as well or instead.
The range of problems and issues to which management science has contributed insights and solutions is vast. It includes scheduling airlines, both planes and crew, deciding the appropriate place to site new facilities such as a warehouse or factory, managing the flow of water from reservoirs, identifying possible future development paths for parts of the telecommunications industry, establishing the information needs and appropriate systems to supply them within the health service, and identifying and understanding the strategies adopted by companies for their information systems.
The staff within Lancaster's Department of Management Science work with all these problems and many more. Their research is concerned with developing novel methods and approaches to well-known problem areas, and also the use of established approaches to understand new areas of application. Teaching within the Department utilises these latest ideas to convey the practical importance of Management Science to organisations.
