A. Planning Company Operations: The General Problem At more or less regular intervals, the management of an industrial enter prise is confronted with the problem of planning operations for a coming period. Within this category of management problems falls not only the overall planning of the company's aggregate production but problems of a more limited nature such as, for example, figuring the least-cost combina tion of raw materials for given output or the optimal transportation schedule. Any such problem of production planning is most rationally solved in two stages: (i) The first stage is...

This book is a result of many years' interest in the economic theory of pro- duction, first aroused by the reading of Professor ERICH SCHNEIDER'S classic Theorie der Produktion. A grant from the Danish-Norwegian Foundation made it possible for me to spend six months at the Institute of Economics, University of Oslo, where I became acquainted with Professor RAGNAR FRISCH'S penetrating pioneer works in this field and where the plan of writing the present book was conceived. Further studies as a Rockefeller fellow at several American univer- sities, especially an eight months' stay at the...