Management Science Process—A Rejoinder to “A Comment on a Behavioral Derivation of EOQ

I am devoting this issue's column to a reply to the preceding comment by Professor Silver; basically, he is correct. It is not always true that equating two cost components of a total cost function will lead to a minimum total overall cost, as readily demonstrated in his comment. The main point in my article, however, was not that a behavioral derivation is best accomplished by equating two cost components of a total cost function but that people's behavior should be taken into account when motivating and deriving models for application. The EOQ model was used simply as an example. Professor Silver's model provides another example, so I should like to take this opportunity to use this example and attempt to clear up an confusion I may have generated.