[SIGCIS-Members] computers and management science

Roger Johnson rgj at dcs.bbk.ac.uk
Tue Jul 21 04:28:16 PDT 2009


Dear Colleagues

 

I think it may be useful to look at the career of Stafford Beer - I only
know it in outline but the Wikipedia entry seems fairly close to what I
remember 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Beer  From this you will see that
Beer was interested in "management cybernetics" rather than management
science as more classically defined. This is I think why a machine like
Pegasus would have been useful to him since he was interested in
Operations Research and Mathematical models. Whatever merit may be given
to the original claim about the use of Pegasus it needs to be considered
against the type of work Beer was actually doing.

 

At the time when Beer started trying to model whole national economies
(eg Chile) not surprisingly he ran out of machine power pretty quickly.
In the light of the past few months it seems doubtful that his ideas
would actually have worked no matter how powerful the computer!

 

Good wishes

 

Roger Johnson

Dept of Computer Science & Information Systems

Birkbeck College University of London

 

________________________________

From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
Behalf Of Roger Neil Barton
Sent: 20 July 2009 15:16
To: Sigcis
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] computers and management science

 

I too have found this a very interesting discussion.  I think there's a
good paper in this somewhere.  Whilst without Sandra or Tom's
fundamental research background I did train in the 60s, a decade later
than the subject of the question and therefore possibly irrelevant.  I
have looked back at dusty old text books for this response.

 

I remember in about 1970 when my employer changed from IBM to Univac,
both bureau machines.  I was responsible for all the commercial
applications, which were memory hungry database oriented,  while we also
used the computer for product design (process plant for petrochemicals
such as spheres), which were computation oriented.  Even though the
compromises were horrendous neither of us separately could justify the
expense but combined together we could.  As far as I am aware everyone
then was in the same position.  In the early 70s I was a Leo user which,
as Sandra stated below, was very much oriented toward the business user.
I worked for the mainframe division of ICL in the 1970s and most sales
were oriented toward computation users as it sounds the Pegasus was.
This was also true for Ferranti Computers division which survived the
ICL merger.  Ian Martin gave a very interesting paper at BSHS09 on
Martins Bank and Pegasus around about 1960 which sounded much more
chaotic than most of my experiences.

 

With regard to "Management Science" in the question I regarded it with
the same suspicion as everyone else.  None of my subjects were called
OR.  One of my final papers was called 'Management Information and
Quantative Techniques' and another 'Management Principles and Practice'.
The blurb on one of my text books 'Mathematics in Management' describes
its purpose "to provide a sound basis of knowledge about the methods of
OR now being applied in public industries and services".  We knew that's
what we were studying but no one called it that.  Apart from Peter
Drucker all my text books were British, which I have to say I now find
amazing.

 

Searching the OED for Management Science it says "1954 Amer. Econ. Rev.
44 1030 A new national society, the Institute of Management Sciences,
has been established with the objective of unifying scientific knowledge
that contributes to the understanding and practice of management. The
Institute will publish a journal, *Management Science. 1955 H. KOONTZ &
C. O'DONNELL Princ. Managem. I. i. 11 Extension of the frontiers of
management science by increasing the efficiency of management, would
unquestionably have revolutionary impact on the cultural level of our
society. "  For Computer Science it reads "1956 N.Y. Times 28 Oct. III.
21 (advt.) Unparalleled opportunities to associate with the prominent
pioneers of computer science, at outstanding salaries. Electronic
engineers (circuit designers and magnetics engineers), logical
designers, [etc.]."  While being the same time frame as the Pegasus
usage in Sheffield it should be noted that these quotations are all
american. I've no idea when the terms might have entered common usage in
Britain.

 

Regarding the possible use of the Pegasus by Sheffield University it
seems inconceivable that they would have had a department studying
management science.  Even though Wharton was founded in 1881 there was
no equivalent here.  I considered the very idea of me studying
management, business, or computer science in a British university pretty
ridiculous.  (I went to Glasgow College of Commerce, now Caledonian
Business School.)  Looking through my old books I've come across one
that must belong to my wife.  It was first published by the Org for
European Economic Cooperation in 1952 and describes a 'Technical
Assistance Mission' to the US.  "American universities run schools of
business administration" of which there are 166.  Presumably worth
noting as there were none here.  None of my old books refer to computer
science but one of them actually has a photograph of a Pegasus!
Generally they use the term EDP.  Tom may know when computer science was
first taught in a British university. The majority of ICL sales in the
70s were still to universities.  Eden states that the Pegasus was
jointly used by Sheffield University and United Steel. It sounds to me
as though Sheffield maths department would have been using it in
conjunction with United Steel for OR functions, among other things.  It
should be possible to discover when United Steel computerised commercial
functions but I would guess subsequent to the Pegasus.  It seems most
likely they were using it to compute some of the processes.

 

kind regards

neil

 

 

Dr Roger Neil Barton
Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research
http://www.uclmail.net/~neil.barton/

	----- Original Message ----- 

	From: Sandra Mols <mailto:sandramols at yahoo.co.uk>  

	To: Medina, Eden <mailto:edenm at indiana.edu>  ; Sigcis
<mailto:members at sigcis.org>  

	Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 10:31 AM

	Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] computers and management science

	 

	Interesting debate. 

	I agree with the comments as regards to a necessary caution when
it comes to evaluate dedication and use of computers. 

	As regards to the Pegasus claim at the origin of this
discussion, two points attract my mind in particular. 

	One is about the extent to which this claim - independently of
its veracity - relate to Ferranti's wishes to steal pieces of the
managament computing  market out of LEO's hands (launched in 1951). In
my research, the Pegasus was mostly used towards scientific uses and -
as far as this claim gets me to think  - it may well be that Ferranti
tried to push it forward as an 'administrative' machine - due to its
comaprative smaller size - to expand its market outreach towards
management 'bureau' issues which had been recently targeted by LEO.

	The other issue - expanding on Tom Haigh - is about the term of
'management science': what does it mean in 1956 when one takes into
account that management was a new fashionable thing in the post-WWII
context, being born out of OR WWII practices, with also OR remaining a
very unfixed, changing concept (more or less quantified) well until the
1960s? 

	Hope this helps,

	 

	 

	Sandra

	 

	
________________________________


	From: "Medina, Eden" <edenm at indiana.edu>
	To: "members at sigcis.org" <members at sigcis.org>
	Sent: Friday, 17 July, 2009 19:37:44
	Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] computers and management science
	
	I knew this was the right group to ask.  
	
	I too agree with the comments being made and thank everyone for
their thoughts on how best to address the claim.  Additional responses
can be sent to me off list unless their is extensive interest in this
topic.  To bring some closure to the topic I may have found a very easy
way to address Beer's statement.  It seems that the Pegasus machine he
referred to was split between United Steel and Sheffield University,
thus throwing into doubt claims that it was entirely dedicated to
management science.
	
	Again, thanks for the help. 
	
	Eden
	
	________________________________________
	From: Joel West [joelwest at ieee.org]
	Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 1:17 PM
	To: Medina, Eden; members at sigcis.org
	Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] computers and management science
	
	Dear Eden,
	
	I share many of Gerard's concerns about the unmeasurability of
such claims and even how dubious making them might be. (I also agree
with Tom that "management science" is too vague -- does he possibly mean
operations research?)
	
	However, as a positivist (are there any others on this list?) I
am inclined to take the claim at face value and see what they might
mean.
	
	So while "first" is likely unprovable, I do think it would be
interesting to say "most computers were bought to do payroll or missile
trajectories and this one was bought to do management science." I
suspect it would be relatively easy to document the "typical" motivation
or application for computers in the era, even if the actual use (post
hoc) is not easily measured. (Ideally, you'd want a list of who had
login accounts, and if necessary assume each used their account
proportionately).
	
	But in some ways, the inputs question is less interesting than
the outputs question. If Beer was the first boy in the invisible college
of his discipline to have a new toy, what did he do with it? Is there
any evidence that this strategic foresight (or dumb luck) enabled him to
advance his field in ways that his less-endowed rivals could not?
	
	I would find it terribly interesting if Beer has the best
computing power but the major advances in numerical approaches to
management science were being made elsewhere. IIRC, the field's major
scientific prize (originally from ORSA, now INFORMS) is named after a
mathematician who made his most important contributions before these
sorts of computers existed.
	
	Joel
	
	
	On 6:25 PM +0200 7/17/09, Alberts, G. hath said:
	>What in heaven would be the purport of such claim? Computers
were not only expensive, they involved major investments, certainly
machines the size of Pegasus. Hence, the legitimation for making such
investment was seldomly based on the single use for one field of
application, or rather for one department in an enterprise or
university. Historians usually can trace the considerations leading to
the actual purchase in the company archives. Also one may be able to
guess where (in which subdepartment) the first initiative to such deep
investment in modernizing business originated.
	>How the machine was in fact used, once installed, is much
harder to reconstruct. Did the administrative support staff actually get
to use the computer or were they pushed out by the scientific computers
from the laboratory departments. Were management scientists favored
before the statisticians and the down to earth daily bookkeeping? In the
incidental case where a logbook is preserved, or where a very early
computing center kept statistics, one may be able to tell something
about who was using the machine.
	>So, what could be the meaning of "dedicated to"? Was that
"dedicated" on the level of legitimation of the purchase, or was it
"dedicated" in terms of seconds and minutes of use of the system? Let
alone that we could judge the claim of "entirely" or even "first".
	>
	>Rather, to us historians being aware of inclusion and exclusion
mechanisms around the use of computers, simply power struggles if you
will, the claim of "dedicated entirely" made in a first person account
has a clear intent. Other users, other interested parties, were
succesfully made invisible, at least in the account of the "management
science" department. Probably bookkkeeping use didnot count, or was
counted under management science in the first place, etcetera.
	>
	>Rather than investigating the claim, my suggestion would be to
investigate the fact that such claim was made, when and by whom.
	
	
	On 11:11 AM -0400 7/17/09, Medina, Eden wrote:
	>I am hoping that your collective wisdom might help me check out
a claim.  The British cybernetician Stafford Beer claims that the
Ferranti Pegasus 1 machine he bought in 1956 was the only computer at
that time dedicated entirely to applications in management science.  Do
you know of any other examples of computers fully dedicated to
management science applications during this time period?
	
	--
	Joel West, Ph.D.          http://www.JoelWest.org/
	Professor, Innovation & Entrepreneurship
	College of Business, San Jose State University
	BT 555, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0070
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