Popularization of Management Science in China.

The article discusses the popularization of management science in China as of March 1986. Since the early sixties, China has been applying mathematical methods to production and planning problems in an environment where qualified personnel are scarce and where computers are not readily available. Popularization of mathematical methods has provided a way to extend the application and impact of management science in China. The optimization offers some of the most appropriate techniques for application at the level of the production facility. The problems that were faced in applying optimization methods in China were the relatively low level of education of the average worker and the lack of computational facilities for methods that require large amounts of calculation, such as linear and dynamic programming. Such problems often involve the optimization of an unknown continuous function, with a single maximum or minimum. These problems are therefore well suited for solution by trial optimization methods, many of which do not require complex calculations and which are also easy to popularize.