COMMAND-AND-CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT DECISION MAKING

Development of command-and-control systems in support of decision making and action taking has been accomplished by military organizations. Upon examination, the major concepts underlying these systems are management concepts. Experience in building command-and-control systems should be valuable in helping to sharpen management concepts and also in perfecting techniques of engineering, computer-programming, and operational methods and procedures applicable to automatic management systems. The command-and-control type system for top management decision making is a man-machine system having at its core an ongoing, dynamic operation. Current technology is adequate for the development by non-military organizations of the command-and-control type of system for management decision making.

LINK ANALYSIS BY COMPUTER

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of graphic vs. computer-aided link analysis. One analyst performed a graphic analysis of a complex flight control system checkout console. Another, following the same operating procedure, carried out a computer-aided analysis of the same console, utilizing the RECOMP II and a specially prepared machine-language program.

Results indicated that the computer-aided analysis was equally accurate and resulted in significant savings in time and money. Therefore, further development and application of the computer-aided technique are recommended.

THE CDC-CDCR DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

A progress report on an experiment in mechanized methods for the storage and retrieval of communicable diseases information. The project, supported by National Institutes of Health grants and begun in 1958, is being conducted by the Center for Documentation and Communication Research (CDCR), School of Library Science, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, in cooperation with the Communicable Disease Center (CDC), United States Public Health Service, Atlanta, Georgia. Initial phases have been completed. Seventy-seven questions submitted by the CDC Documentation Committee have been searched by CDCR on their GE-225 computer. For seventy-three of the seventy-seven questions, the system responded with at least one appropriate answer. The combined pertinent and peripheral responses totaled 94.7 percent. The file of abstracted literature is being increased preparatory to large-scale testing. Further investigation and evaluation are necessary before the project can be fairly appraised.