p~~~<br >During the last few years， particularly in larger companies， there<br >has been a move towards combining the hitherto separate depart-<br >ments of Work Study， 0 & M， O.R. and Computer Services into one<br >Management Services or Productivity Services department. This is a<br >logical development， since as each of these areas has expanded and<br >developed its activities， a great deal of overlap between them has<br >inevitably occurred.<br > One of the implications of this amalgamation is the necessity for<br >people in these departments to develop into Management Services<br >staff， rather than remain comparatively narrow specialists in one<br >area of the field. One of the essential requirements of such a broaden-<br >ing process is the acquisition of a knowledge of basic statistical<br >methods， on which so many of the newer techniques are based.<br > As better information systems are developed (often computer-<br >based)， more and more quantitative data are becoming available to<br >assist managers in their decision-making. A knowledge of statistical<br >methods is necessary to interpret the meaning of such data and to<br >use the information contained therein to the best advantage. Such<br > knowledge also enables the manager to make the best use of the<br > expertise available to him in the Management Services department.<br > The purpose of this book is to provide the introduction to statisti-<br > cal methods needed in both these areas. It has grown from a series<br > of lecture notes written by the author for courses in Statistics at what<br > was formerly the Cranfield Work Study School， and is now the<br > Management Services Centre of the Cranfield School of Management.<br > The approach is essentially practical， each new idea being immedi-<br > ately illustrated by means of real-life examples. Further examples<br > are given to be worked as exercises. Full solutions are given to all<br > these exercises， thus making the book particularly useful to manage-<br > ment students.<br >