Donald G. Malcolm (March 26, 1919 - June 18, 2007)"Donald G. Malcolm, Obituary," ''Los Angeles Times.'' on July 4, 2007 was an American

organizational theorist Organizational theory refers to the set of interrelated concepts that involve the sociological study of the structures and operations of formal social organizations. Organizational theory also attempts to explain how interrelated units of organiz ...

, professor and dean at Cal State L.A.'s College of Business and EconomicsTimes Staff and Wire Reports. "Donald G. Malcolm, 88; led Cal State L.A.'s College of Business and Economics," ''Los Angeles Times,'' July 09, 2007. and

management consultant Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants ...

, known as co-developer of the Performance, Evaluation, and Review Technique (PERT).

Biography

Malcolm was born and raised in Indianapolis. In 1940 he obtained his BSc in Public Service Engineering from

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

, and after the war his MSc in

industrial engineering Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information a ...

. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Malcolm served on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific as radioman. After his graduation Malcolm started his academic career as research team leader of the Operations Research Team at the Johns Hopkins University. In 1950 he was lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, and by 1952 assistant professor of industrial engineering at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. In the 1950s he was also management consultant for Booz, Allen and Hamilton in Chicago, Illinois, and in those days participated with the US Navy Special Projects Office, especially with Willard Fazar, in the development of

PERT Pert or PERT may refer to: Ships * - see List of United States Navy ships: P * , a World War II corvette, originally HMS ''Nepeta'' * ''Pert'' (sidewheeler), a 19th-century steamboat that operated in British Columbia, Canada Statistics * PE ...

. In 1954-1955 he was president of the American Institute of Industrial Engineers, now Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. In 1962 he settled as management consultant with his own consultancy firm ''Management Technology Inc.'' From 1962 to 1967 he also directed the National Safety Standards division of the US Department of Transportation. From 1970 he was one of the Senior Vice Presidents of Computer Applications, Inc., and from 1972 to 1981 he served as dean of the College of Business and Economics at the

California State University, Los Angeles California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) is a public university in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system. Cal State LA offers 142 bachelor's degrees, 122 master's degrees, ...

. In 1963 he published a review of '' Cybernetics—in the Service of Communism''.This raised concerns that the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

might use cybernetics to outstrip the USA in terms of economic development.Malcolm, D. G. Operations Research 11, no. 6 (1963): 1007-012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/167842. In 1965 Malcolm was awarded a Distinguished Alumnus Award from

.Ferdinand F. Leimkuhler. ''An Enduring Quest: The Story of Purdue Industrial Engineers.'' 2009, p. 207 After his retired in 1981 and Malcolm moved to the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he remained active for many more years. In the new millennium he had moved back to the mainland, and died in 2007 at his home in Santa Monica.

Work

Team leader on operations research projects

Malcolm made his most notable contributions as team leader on specific operations research projects. The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' (2007) summarized: :"From the mid 1950s he was a team leader on operations research projects at Booz Allen in Chicago; the Systems Development Corp., and Operations Research, Inc. in Santa Monica. While at Booz Allen, he headed the research team that developed the original PERT System for the Navy's first submarine-launched ballistic missile, the Polaris. During this time frame, he also led the team designing the first computer -based Business Game for the American Management Association, which was the model for many such computer simulations in subsequent years."

Selected publications

* Donald G. Malcolm, Ernest Paul DeGarmo, ''Visual Inspection of Products for Surface Characteristics in Grading Operations,'' U.S. Department of Agriculture, Production and Marketing Administration, 1953. * Malcolm, Donald G., and Alan J. Rowe (eds.)
Management control systems: the proceedings of a symposium
'' Wiley, 1960. * Donald G. Malcolm. ''Management and the engineer--harnessing technology in pursuit of better management,'' College of Engineering, West Virginia University, 1974. ;Articles, a selection * Bellman, R., Clark, C. E., Malcolm, D. G., Craft, C. J., & Ricciardi, F. M. (1957). "On the construction of a multi-stage, multi-person business game." ''Operations Research,'' 5(4), 469-503. * Malcolm, Donald G. "System simulation—a fundamental tool for industrial engineering." ''Journal of Industrial Engineering'' 9.3 (1958). * Malcolm, Donald G., Roseboom, J. H., Clark, C. E., & Fazar, W. (1959).
Application of a technique for research and development program evaluation
" ''Operations research,'' 7(5), 646-669. * Malcolm, Donald G.
Bibliography on the use of simulation in management analysis
" ''Operations Research'' 8.2 (1960): 169-177. * Malcolm, Donald G.
Exploring the Military Analogy—Real-Time Management Control
" See Ref 31 (1960): 187-207. * Malcolm, Donald G. "On the Need for Improvement in Implementation of OR." ''Management Science'' 11.4 (1965): B-48.

References

External links

Donald G. Malcolm
School of Industrial Engineering - Purdue University
In Memoriam: Donald G. Malcolm
at Cal State LA {{DEFAULTSORT:Malcolm, Donald G. 1919 births 2007 deaths American business theorists Purdue University College of Engineering alumni Booz Allen Hamilton people UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty California State University, Los Angeles faculty People from Indianapolis