We have discovered in this past decade that thinking, and decision, are not solely the province of the metaphysicist, but are appropriate subjects fo… - Robert E. Machol

The conclusions of most good operations research studies are obvious.

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.

Everyone knows what engineering is. All that's left is to define systems, and I'm not fool enough to do that.