The operations-research practitioner who studies problems of industrial or business operations may be either external or internal to his customer's organization; i.e., either he may be working under contract to the company (as an individual or as a member of an independent firm), or he may actually be an employee of the company. Most of my own experience has been in the latter situation, my research being directed to the analysis of operations of the company with which I was associated. I shall therefore take that point of view here. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.