Linear Optimization made practical  with  a convenient facility for  "what if" analyzes.

Tomorrow's managers of companies will face a major challenge during the next decade. In a business environment increasingly dominated by scarcities and uncertainties, managers will begin to encounter, if they have not already, several complex problems in the allocation of resources and the balancing of corporate activities.  Here we are concerned with such matters as the most efficient manner in which to run a business or a factory, or with such mundane task as energy cost, fuel cost and mixing cattle feed to meet diet specifications at minimum cost.

In summary:

  • Existing levels of demand will often strain available production capacities and expanding the capacities will become increasingly more expensive.
  • Physical and political factors will limit supplies of raw materials and fuels; and supplies may be subject to interruptions.
  • The cost of energy, transportation, materials, labor, and other factors will continue to rise, often without warning, so that accepted tradeoffs between operating activities may change overnight.

WhatsOp is an economic planning system designed to be easy to use and easy to understand. It is completely self contained for use in a Windows PC planning environment.  It is not the intention of  WhatsOp to teach mathematical modelling,  but to supplement  math courses on the subject.  WhatsOp is intended to be a  reference review material in mathematical modelling via linear algebra.,  at the same time it gives the user a convenient easy way of comparing different scenarios or "what ifs".

UNIQUE CONCEPT OF MODELING:
WhatsOp uses a unique concept of linear optimization, which eliminates the need for a mathematician analyst to setup a planning model. The model in  WhatsOp is not represented through mathematical equations and relations, (although the capability to do so is fully supported) but rather through a recipe like resource utilization where a product accumulates cost and value added as the product moves from production, distribution and the market place. This recipe like utilization of resources and/or materials, and the cost it accumulates is the input model for  WhatsOp.

WhatsOp is being promoted to math professors and teachers as an after-the-course reference review material for their students.  The idea is to keep them interested in optimizing options  with resources as they move on to management.  Business students and/or  part-time users, are more likely, be interested in doing "what ifs" and  not setting up linear equations.