Electronic spreadsheets are the most common software tool managers use
to analyze data and model quantitative problems. Increasingly, these
software packages are being used in introductory OR/MS courses to intr
oduce students to a variety of quantitative modeling tools, Because sp
readsheets are inherently free-form, they impose no particular guideli
nes or structure on the way problems may be modeled, Thus, academics a
nd practitioners accustomed to solving problems using very structured,
dedicated OR/MS software packages are facing the challenge of dealing
with these problems in the unstructured spreadsheet environment where
there is often a variety of ways to implement and solve the same prob
lem, This challenge is particularly acute in the case of optimization
problems, Some are responding to this challenge by devising rules for
implementing models that impose an artificial structure on spreadsheet
s, sometimes resembling the operation of dedicated OR/MS optimization
packages, This paper offers a critique of this approach and provides s
ome guidelines we believe to be more helpful in creating effective spr
eadsheet models for optimization problems. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science L
td.