Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science – serie

This handbook contains chapters covering a broad range of supply chain management issues written by leading experts in the field. It is aimed at researchers, students, engineers, economists and managers involved in supply chain management.

This book contains eleven chapters describing some of the most recent methodological operations research developments in transportation. It is structured around the main transportation modes, and each chapter is written by a group of well-recognized researchers. Because of the major impact of operations research methods in the field of air transportation over the past forty years, it is befitting to open the book with a chapter on airline operations management.

This book will prove useful to researchers, students, and practitioners in transportation and will stimulate further research in this rich and fascinating area.

The chapters of this Handbook volume cover nine main topics that are representative of recenttheoretical and algorithmic developments in the field. In addition to the nine papers that present the state of the art, there is an article on the early history of the field.

The handbook will be a useful reference to experts in the field as well as students and others who want to learn about discrete optimization.

The papers in this volume consider a general area of study known as network routing. The underlying problems are conceptually simple, yet mathematically complex and challenging. How can we best route material or people from one place to another? Or, how can we best design a system (for instance locate facilities) to provide services and goods as efficiently and equitably as possible? The problems encountered in answering these questions often have an underlying combinatorial structure, for example, either we dispatch a vehicle or we do not, or we use one particular route or another. The problems also typically have an underlying network structure (a communication or transportation network). In addition, models for these problems are often very large with hundreds or thousands of constraints and variables. A companion volume in the "Handbook" series, entitled "Network Models", treats basic network models such as minimum cost flows, matching and the travelling salesman problem, as well as, several complex network topics, not directly related to routing, such as network design and network reliability.

Collected together in this book are ten state-of-the-art expository articles on the most important topics in optimization, written by leading experts in the field. The book therefore provides a primary reference for those performing research in some area of optimization or for those who have some basic knowledge of optimization techniques but wish to learn the most up-to-date and efficient algorithms for particular classes of problems. The first sections of each chapter are expository and therefore accessible to master's level graduate students. However, the chapters also contain advanced material on current topics of interest to researchers. For instance there are chapters which describe the polynomial-time linear programming algorithms of Khachian and Karmarkar and the techniques used to solve combinatorial and integer programming problems, an order of magnitude larger than was possible just a few years ago. Overall a comprehensive yet lively and up-to-date discussion of the state-of-the-art in optimization is presented in this book.

The essays collected in this volume present a broad survey of the state of the art in logistics systems research as viewed by a distinguished group of scholars. The book shows that logistics remains an active, vibrant subject of inquiry. There are several reasons for this continued development. Firstly, logistic systems are extremely complex with many inherent technical problems and fundamentally new approaches to the subject are frequently arising. Secondly, the practical world of logistics has changed markedly over the past few decades, posing significant new challenges to researchers. This volume focuses mainly on the key developments in the last decade, which has witnessed an astonishing leap in our understanding of what logistics is all about.

The chapters in this volume can be grouped into three parts. Part I provides an introductory course in the design and operation of computers and computer systems. It conveys a knowledge of the basic principles of computer systems along with perspectives on the history and future of computers. The study of algorithmics is contained in Part II including matrix computations, fundamental algorithms and data structures, design and analysis of efficient algorithms, and computational complexity. Part III brings out the relation between computer systems and operations research applications. This volume was designed and written for use in the operations research and management science community. Apart from the background provided by the first five chapters, the emphasis is on the computational tools, algorithms, languages, and systems that assist the problem solver.

Leading marketing scientists, with an MS/OR orientation, present in this book a state-of-the-art review of their area of expertise. The wide range of material spans the marketing discipline and represents coverage of both what is known and what problem areas present themselves as ripe for further development. The articles are written with a technically sophisticated reader in mind, but not necessarily an expert in marketing. The authors provide a discussion of the motivation - the behavioural foundations or key assumptions - leading to the development of the important models or methods in each area. While not primarily a text, the book provides a foundation for advanced students in marketing. MS/OR professionals, both academic and practitioner alike, will appreciate the impact that the MS/OR approach has had in the marketing area. Finally, the book provides useful reading for marketing scientists, academics and practitioners who want access to integrated treatments of the most important topics in their field.

This volume is a comprehensive treatment of a variety of public sector applications of OR methods. The papers are directed at bridging the gap between theory and practice, with an emphasis on a clear statement of where these methods have been used and were useful. The technical level is appropriate for the general reader, with a specific interest in either a particular subject area (military, urban services, crime and justice, health and administration, air and water quality, natural resources management, apportionment), or methodology (hazardous facility siting, voting theory and paired comparisons, competitive bidding, and theories of measurement).