a constant value that is generally a coefficient of a variable in a mathematical equation
payoff table
a table used to show the payoffs that can result from decisions under various states of nature
penalty cost
the penalty (or regret ) suffered by a decision maker when a wrong decision is made
periodic inventory system
a system in which an order is placed for a variable amount at fixed time intervals
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permanent set
in a shortest route network problem, a set of nodes to which the shortest route from the start node has been determined
pessimistic time
one of three time estimates used in a beta distribution to determine an activity time; it is the longest possible time it would take to complete an activity if everything went wrong
pivot column
the column corresponding to the entering variable
Poisson distribution
a probability distribution that describes the occurrence of a relatively rare event in a fixed period of time; often used to define arrivals at a service facility in a queuing system
political/social forecast
a prediction of political and social changes that may occur in the future
population mean
the mean of an entire set of data being analyzed
posterior probability
the altered marginal probability of an event based on additional information
precedence relationship
the relationship exhibited by events that must occur in sequence; such events can be represented by a CPM/PERT network
primal
the original form of a linear programming model
priority
the importance of a goal relative to other goals in a goal programming model
probabilistic techniques
management science techniques that take into account uncertain information and give probabilistic solutions
probability distribution
a distribution showing the probability of occurrence of all events in an experiment
probability tree
a diagram showing the probabilities of the various outcomes of an experiment
production lot size model
an inventory model for a business that produces its own inventory at a gradual rate (also known as the noninstantaneous receipt model)
prohibited route
in a transportation model, a route (i.e., variable) to which no allocation can be made
project crashing
a method for reducing the duration of a CPM/PERT project network by reducing one or more critical path activities and incurring a cost
project evaluation and review technique (PERT)
a network technique, designed for project planning and scheduling, that uses probabilistic activity times
pseudorandom numbers
random numbers generated by a mathematical process rather than by a physical process
