Describes a spreadsheet approach for implementing Wagner‐Whitin (WW) and Silver‐Meal (SM) methods for lotsizing time‐varying demands. Suggests that this approach manages the computation and makes tedious and repetitive tasks more interesting; consequently, the student/user can concentrate...

Trade‐offs among logistics cost and service elements often make transport selection analysis difficult, especially when demand is uncertain and carriers offer different rates and services. The spreadsheet environment offers a powerful, manager‐friendly medium for analysing these...

Spreadsheet software is now widely used as a decision‐making tool, owing to the simplicity and ease with which generalists can analyse and obtain fast and precise information. Through spreadsheet programs, a on‐specialist can conduct an exhaustive “what if” search in order to make...

The application of just‐in‐time manufacturing techniques in batch chemical processing environments, under conditions of variable demand, imposes significant capacity management problems. Making decisions which involve levels of customer service and resource untilization can be aided by the...

Managers are constantly making decisions that affect profit. One of the decision‐making areas which is crucial to all managers concerns profit planning. Attempts to show how cost‐volume‐profit (CVP) analysis, aided by the computer spreadsheet, can be applied to the practical profit...

The commercial spreadsheet is 21 years old and is now a commonplace business tool. To assess its impact on today’s modern business, this paper presents research based on a questionnaire survey of 227 respondents drawn from a range of business disciplines, and at various levels within their...

Reviews the literature on capacity planning at strategic, tactical and operational levels but points out that, in practice, many enterprise resource planning systems make unrealistic assumptions for production planning; and the advanced production software packages which can deal with...

Provides guidelines to facilitate the development of usable, efficient and maintainable spreadsheet models. Whilst primarily written for those who may be building models for a third party, the article should also prove of value to the casual modeller.