The conclusions of most good operations research studies are obvious. - Robert E. Machol

Management has a design and operation function, as does engineering. The design is usually done under the heading of organization. It should be noted first that the performance of a group of people is a strong function of the capabilities of the individuals and a rather weak function of the way they are organized. That is, good people do a fairly good job under almost any organization and a somewhat better one when the organization is good. Poor talent does a poor job with a bad organization, but it is still a poor job no matter what the organization. Repeated reorganizations are noted in groups of individuals poorly suited to their function, though no amount of good organization will give good performance. The best architectural design fails with poor bricks and mortar. But the payoff from good organization with good people is worthwhile.

There are four distinct bases on which a system-design book might be organized. First are the chronological phases through which the system-design effort passes, such as organization and preliminary design. Second are the logical steps such as analysis of the single thread (operation on a single input) and high traffic (methods of handling multiplex inputs). Third are the parts of the system, such as communications and displays. Fourth are the tools of system design, such as information theory and queueing theory.

We assert that it is possible to describe analytically any human function which can be reasonably defined in objective terms and we specifically include in such functions "thinking" insofar as that term is definable. If by "thinking" one means being able to do arithmetic, or play a good game of chess, or learn from experience, or make optimal decisions in exceedingly complex situations, then we assert that thinking can be described analytically. And there are two important corollaries: if It can be described analytically, it can be simulated; and if it can be simulated, it can be performed mechanically.