The sixth edition of Stevenson’s book produces, on the face of it, no surprises; it continues the tradition of well-written, attractive-looking, technically competent basic textbooks in the field of operations. Indeed, there is a clonish-look about many of these textbooks.

An Oftel investigation has found that developing competition is reducing BT’s prices for leased lines to business customers on the higher bandwidth circuits. Leased lines are typically used to transmit data about financial transactions. The investigation was launched after complaints from large business users that UK prices were much higher than those in the USA and Europe.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has appointed an e-business champion to encourage the development of e-commerce in Britain.