Mathematical Programming in American Companies: A Sample Survey

Numerous articles in the last two decades have demonstrated how mathematical programming techniques can be applied to a wide spectrum of problems in business. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the results of a sample survey which provides partial and tentative answers to the following four queries: (1) Who is adopting mathematical programming models? (2) What has been the quality of the results? (3) In which specific areas have such models been used? and (4) Why have firms not adopted mathematical programming techniques?