The problems are complex, and the myriad possibilities for resolving some of them equally complex. To my way of thinking, the time for decision and action is now. The future of this Nation depends upon our foresight and forcefulness in this, as in many other areas of new challenges.

I want to thank the chairman for his consideration in arranging for me to testify at this time.

Senator NELSON. I appreciate your appearance before the subcommittee today.

As you know, Senator Dominick, who cosponsored your measure, is a member of the Labor and Welfare Committee and had intended to be sitting on these subcommittee hearings, but there are some very important hearings on the supplemental Vietnam budget which demanded his attention.

I have talked with him about working out or attempting to work out a bipartisan bill that incorporates the concept in your bill, and the concept in the one I introduced. I think all of us agree that search as hard as you might, you can't find a partisan issue in this bill. It is a matter of equal concern to all people, regardless of party.

I find, in talking with my friends who are systems engineers, that one of the problems that seems to puzzle them the most, and which is difficult but wouldn't puzzle you as much, is the implementation of the program once you have done the analysis of the problem. They have been accustomed to dealing, for example, with DOD. Once they accumulate the facts, identify the problem and evaluate alternative methods of solving the problem, immediately when the decision is made, DOD goes ahead and does it.

The difference in applying it to a social problem is when you get to the decisionmaking stage, it isn't just a question of DOD and the systems engineering group to say, "We will now take this money that has been appropriated and spend it." When you get to the social side, then it has to go to the city councils, the county boards, the regional planning commissions, and the Congress of the United States.

The political decision to implement a program which has been evaluated and alternative solutions proposed is a political decision. They, I think, found it difficult to visualize how that would work. I don't think it is quite so difficult as they do.

I know it raises tough political questions, but I am satisfied that once you get an evaluation which came up with a constructive solution of the air pollution problem, the political leadership of this country will have the capacity to implement it because the public demand is there and will be there.

Senator SCOTT. I would think so, Mr. Chairman. I don't think there is any politics in crystal balls here or in peering into the future. The application of these techniques to social problems involves these elements that you mentioned, and involves also the interaction on human beings.

The Department of Defense, of course, can decree methods toward solution. That somewhat more arbitrary technique is not quite as applicable when you get to social problems. The political and social difficulties are certainly not insurmountable, but the approach, to my

mind, is essential if we are going to do our best to manage the future in keeping with the concepts which guide this country's way of government and way of life.

very

We, in my office, would be very glad to help and would be happy to be associated with some combined and common effort by yourself, Senator Dominick, and any others of like mind if we can be useful in that area.

Senator NELSON. I certainly will want to work with you.

I want to make one more observation: There is, in fact, quite a bit of systems engineering, systems analysis technique, being used in the social field already in this country by our many regional planning commissions. One of the early ones was Dade County in Florida.

While I was Governor, we created the southeast regional planning commission, which involved seven of the largest and most populous counties in our State and also the Wolf River Planning Commission. Each one of those commissions is deeply involved in the technique we are talking about and very successfully so.

That is why I particularly wanted Mr. Kurt Bauer to be present, but he is unable to be here today.

I think the record will show that there are many places in this country where the very techniques we are talking about are presently being applied to the solution of social problems. The Southeast Regional Planning Commission of Wisconsin is developing a comprehensive transportation plan and recreational plan, and several other plans, using the very techniques that we are discussing here.

So I don't think there is any question about the feasibility of applying the technique to social problems. It will vary in its feasibility. Air and water pollution may be a whole lot simpler one to tackle, say, than some of the social problems that involve a more direct human element.

Senator SCOTT. I think it is quite interesting that Governor Shafer, in his state of the Commonwealth message yesterday, concludes the message with certain recommendations, the last of which is:

Adoption of a new Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code to help our communities plan better for the growth that is coming.

I am a member of the Pennsylvania State Planning Board, along with my senior colleague, Senator Clark. My legislative assistant, Mr. Richard W. Murphy, who sits with me this morning, attends its sessions whenever I am unable to be present. We have a continuing interest in these problems and the relationship between the Federal Government and our Commonwealth.

Senator NELSON. Thank you very much, Senator Scott. I appreciate your taking the time to appear before us. Senator SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator NELSON. Our next witness is Dr. Simon Ramo, vice chairman of the board, TRW, Inc., of Cleveland, Ohio.

STATEMENT OF DR. SIMON RAMO, VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, TRW, INC., CLEVELAND, OHIO

Dr. RAMO. Senator, I am very happy to be here. I have no written or prepared statement. I have prepared myself to make extemporaneous remarks and provide answers to your questions. In preparation

for this day, I have read all of the testimony and I have been informed as to the testimony of the last day.

Senator NELSON. Would you identify your company and some of your background for the record, Doctor?

Dr. RAMO. Yes. TRW is a large, diversified corporation, at a sales level of about $1 billion. Some hundreds of millions of dollars of that is made up of work for defense, either directly or indirectly, or for space.

Senator NELSON. What does TRW stand for?

Dr. RAMO. Formerly, Thompson Ramo Woodridge: the official name of the company, the legal name is now TRW, Inc.

A considerable fraction of our work is for the Federal or other agencies of Government, about one-third. Within that there is a very large segment that is involved in systems engineering, including some several millions of dollars on what might be called the social system engineering type of effort with which this subcommittee is concerned. Senator NELSON. This is on a contracting basis?

Dr. RAMO. Yes. Some of it is being done through our own funds as initial studies, preliminary toward contractual work with agencies of the Government.

Senator NELSON. I don't want to, from here, direct the course of your presentation. Would you prefer to go ahead and make your extemporaneous remarks?

I was going to ask you to identify some of the systems engineering work that you have done in the social field. I will assume you will do that.

Dr. RAMO. I will be happy to do that.

May I first comment on the fact that a good deal of what I would have felt desirable to write out in an effort to be helpful to the subcommittee has been, I think, exceedingly well done in previous testimony. In fact, I might add that what has been brought out here publicly in these hearings, I think, is very impressive in providing what might be called a textbook on what systems engineering is, and how it might be applied.

I think some, clearly not all, of what the bill to create a National Commission on Public Management seeks to accomplish is being accomplished through these hearings.

You have brought out that systems engineering or systems analysis is not magic, it is not new, but that, indeed, particularly over the last decade or two, that methodology has been developed to a very high degree of competence and applicability, and that it indeed is broadly applicable to the social engineering problems.

TRW, as I indicated, is very active in systems engineering and more recently active in what I might call social systems engineering projects. It may be that we have the largest team of systems engineers in industry. We have in work now some 8 or 10 projects that are in the fields of health, transportation, information systems, land use, and other such social problems.

It might be helpful for me to take one or two examples and make some comments about those prior to your asking some questions, if it seems suitable to you.

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I have chosen these examples under the heading of "Implementation." I have chosen them particularly in the last moment or two in hearing your remarks of a few moments ago.

It appears very well established by the previous testimony that systems engineering is applicable to major public or social problems. I consider myself basically a systems engineer although I have been an executive for the last several years. I think we all tend to see systems engineering as a natural quantitative analysis, quantitative commonsense, as it has been called by some witnesses here, and of considerable applicability, to problems such as those to which S. 430 and S. 467 are addressed.

But we are not skilled on the political side. Naturally, we have interfaced with the political side for many years, but we don't consider this our area of maximum expertise. Therefore, the implementation of systems engineering, as you brought out a few moments ago, is most important, but seems to some of us rather difficult in those problem areas by comparison with the application of systems engineering in, let us say, defense areas.

Two examples come to mind, one has not yet started officially under contract, but that we hope might be started fairly soon with us or some other organization.

One is a project of the Los Angeles Police Department. Here you have a more or less single entity in government with leadership that recognizes a problem. It has occurred to them that to handle the increasing problems of that police department, they have some choices, and those choices include spending available funds in part to augment the police force under, shall we say, conventional concepts, or to improve communications, information handling, command and control in such a way as to make the manpower much more effective by being in a better position to use their resources at any given time.

It has also been apparent to this leadership that if they are going to do this, they must have aid from those who are experienced in the analysis of the flow of information, and who know the latest technology in the handling of information, in the acquisition of it, in the storage of it, in the assembly and processing, and finally in the communicating and display of that so that it can be used for superior command and control of operations.

In this connection, we have naturally come together and we are studying that problem. But the implementation and attendant management relationships would appear there to be relatively straightforward. I think there is a lesson to be learned from this: That is, as our studies show the economic gain and the performance gain that can be obtained by the use of modern technology in reorganizing the handling of information, and command and control functions within the police department, the department would then request that part of the funds available for the police department, in effect, be allocated for the implementation, modification, and organization required; for the installation of equipment, the training in new procedures and, in general, for changing the man-machine interrelationship within the police department in order to attain this higher performance.

They would be able to see not only what it would cost, but what they could hope to gain from it. They will be in a position to explain and defend what the advantages will be.

I think it will be so convincing a case that it will be relatively easy for them to obtain the necessary sponsorship to make this happen. When they do that, I think it will be an example for other police departments throughout the Nation, and the process will grow quite naturally.

Senator NELSON. If you are going to another example, I would like to mention something.

What you have just said demonstrates that systems analysis can be applied in a limited, narrow scope, such as in the police force in Los Angeles, to improve their techniques of policing, so to speak. We do that in program budgeting in a limited fashion.

At the same time, if you are going to look at the problems of the police departments, you have to also, at some stage, do an analysis of what causes crime, what causes the juvenile delinquent.

I have noticed recently in talking with a principal of a high school in Milwaukee who has a Teachers Corps team of three teachers-and I don't want to stand on these statistics, but 'I will correct the record when it comes back to me-who had in this school 40 or 50 children who were quite a problem. They came from a particular part of the city, a very limited area. They were flunking two or three courses, or more, and they were disciplinary problems in the school.

This year when they had the Teacher Corps team, they took about 30 of those youths who were flunking three courses or more and assigned them to a Teacher Corps student on a one-to-one basis, and instead of sending them to the principal, they were sending them to the Teacher Corps teacher, to sit down and work with them on their problem in school.

Pretty soon a substantial percentage of them were passing all their courses, and another percentage were only flunking one course. Pretty soon the discipline problem disappeared.

This is all by way of saying that in dealing with the police side you can apply the technique to improving the management and the effectiveness of the handling of information and that sort of thing, but to get at the total problem, you have to get behind it and find out what caused the youth, for example, to get into trouble in the first place.

It is here where I think systems analysis can provide some very effective answers. You can keep spending money and become more and more efficient, but you still have more and more problems that you are dealing with because you are not getting at the social problem that would solve that problem.

This one in this school demonstrated a very simple example of suddenly getting rid of very difficult disciplinary problems, suddenly getting children who were getting special help becoming better students, cooperative and part of the useful social community in that school.

Dr. RAMO. I think your remarks, taken with mine, constitute an opportunity to emphasize a point which has not yet been emphasized in the hearings. Systems analysis conjures up in the minds of many people who are associated with it the concept of completeness, the concept of recognizing the tremendous amount of interaction between various pieces in any complex problem.

The experienced systems engineer expects this and arranges his work so as to give great attention to this interaction in optimizing or insuring a harmonious ensemble of all the pieces of the solution he