Summary: Choosing an optimal control is closely linked to the assessment of operations. There is the analysis of operation assessment by using of low-cost method in the work. The cases in which the indicator "costs" can be coordinated with the performance operations are identified.

Key words: costs, operational efficiency, optimization criterion, efficiency criterion.

Summary: One of the major problems of management and economy is the lack of benchmarks that provide the possibility of an adequate assessment system operations to select the best of them. The paper discusses the approaches used by the authors to develop evaluation criteria.

Key words: performance indicator, the cybernetic model, operational approach, criterion of efficiency.