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An e-book explaining Operation Research Concepts
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CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300 Boca Raton, FL 33487-
© 2008 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
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International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-8493-9721-9 (Hardcover)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Operations research and management science handbook / editor, A. Ravi Ravindran. p. cm. -- (Operations research series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8493-9721-9 (alk. paper)
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Dedication
Contents xi
xii Contents
xiv Preface
Part II of the handbook contains 11 chapters discussing the OR/MS applications in specific areas. They include:
Part II ends with a chapter on the future of OR/MS applications. The handbook is an ideal reference book for OR/MS practitioners in business, industry, government, and academia. It can also serve as a supplemental text in undergraduate and graduate OR/MS courses at the university level.
A. Ravi Ravindran University Park, Pennsylvania
Acknowledgments
First and foremost I would like to thank the authors, who have worked diligently in writing the various handbook chapters that are comprehensive, concise, and easy to read, bridging the gap between theory and practice. The development and evolution of this handbook have also benefited substantially from the advice and counsel of my colleagues and friends in academia and industry, who are too numerous to acknowledge individually. They helped me identify the key topics to be included in the handbook, suggested chapter authors, and served as reviewers of the manuscripts. I express my sincere appreciation to Atul Rangarajan, an industrial engineering doc- toral student at Penn State University, for serving as my editorial assistant and for his careful review of the page proofs returned by the authors. Several other graduate stu- dents also helped me with the handbook work, in particular, Ufuk Bilsel, Ajay Natarajan, Richard Titus, Vijay Wadhwa, and Tao Yang. Special thanks go to Professor Prabha Sharma at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, for her careful review of several chapter manuscripts. I also acknowledge the pleasant personality and excellent typing skills of Sharon Frazier during the entire book project. I thank Cindy Carelli, Senior Acquisitions Editor, and Jessica Vakili, project coordinator at CRC Press, for their help from inception to publication of the handbook. Finally, I wish to thank my dear wife, Bhuvana, for her patience, understanding, and support when I was focused completely on the handbook work.
A. Ravi Ravindran
xv
Contributors
R´eka Albert Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
Farhad Azadivar University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth North Dartmouth, Massachusetts
Adedeji B. Badiru Air Force Institute of Technology Dayton, Ohio
P. Balasubramanian Theme Work Analytics Bangalore, India
Qianmei Feng University of Houston Houston, Texas
Bobbie L. Foote U.S. Military Academy (Retd.) West Point, New York
Natarajan Gautam Texas A&M University College Station, Texas
Robin C. Gilbert University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma
H. J. Greenberg University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center Denver, Colorado
Catherine M. Harmonosky Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
Aliza R. Heching IBM T. J. Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights, New York
C. Randy Hudson Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Kailash C. Kapur University of Washington Seattle, Washington
Rex K. Kincaid College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia
Alan J. King IBM T. J. Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights, New York
Cerry M. Klein University of Missouri–Columbia Columbia, Missouri
Soundar R. T. Kumara Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
Lawrence M. Leemis College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia
G. V. Loganathan Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia
Abu S. M. Masud Wichita State University Wichita, Kansas
Tod Morrison University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center Denver, Colorado
Katta G. Murty University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan
Giuseppe Paleologo IBM T. J. Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights, New York
Atul Rangarajan Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
A. Ravi Ravindran Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
Sowmyanarayanan Sadagopan Indian Institute of Information Technology Bangalore, India
Jane L. Snowdon IBM T. J. Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights, New York
xix
xx Contributors
Hari P. Thadakamalla Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
Marlin U. Thomas Air Force Institute of Technology Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
Theodore B. Trafalis University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma
Jos´e A. Ventura Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
Donald P. Warsing North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina
Jeffery D. Weir Air Force Institute of Technology Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
Michael Weng University of South Florida Tampa, Florida
Susan H. Xu Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
Mehmet Bayram Yildirim Wichita State University Wichita, Kansas
xxii History of Operations Research and Management Science
and TIMS, merged to form the Institute of Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS). Another factor that accelerated the growth of operations research was the introduction of OR/MS courses in the curricula of many universities and colleges in the United States. Graduate programs leading to advanced degrees at the master’s and doctorate levels were introduced in major American universities. By the mid-1960s many theoretical advances in OR techniques had been made, which included linear programming, network analysis, integer programming, nonlinear programming, dynamic programming, inventory theory, queueing theory, and simulation. Simultaneously, new applications of OR emerged in service organizations such as banks, health care, communications, libraries, and transportation. In addition, OR came to be used in local, state, and federal governments in their planning and policy-making activities. It is interesting to note that the modern perception of OR as a body of established models and techniques—that is, a discipline in itself—is quite different from the original concept of OR as an activity, which was preformed by interdisciplinary teams. An evolution of this kind is to be expected in any emerging field of scientific inquiry. In the initial formative years, there are no experts, no traditions, no literature. As problems are successfully solved, the body of specific knowledge grows to a point where it begins to require specialization even to know what has been previously accomplished. The pioneering efforts of one generation become the standard practice of the next. Still, it ought to be remembered that at least a portion of the record of success of OR can be attributed to its ecumenical nature.
Meaning of Operations Research
From the historical and philosophical summary just presented, it should be apparent that the term “operations research” has a number of quite distinct variations of meaning. To some, OR is that certain body of problems, techniques, and solutions that has been accumulated under the name of OR over the past 50 years and we apply OR when we recognize a prob- lem of that certain genre. To others, it is an activity or process, which by its very nature is applied. It would also be counterproductive to attempt to make distinctions between “oper- ations research” and the “systems approach.” For all practical purposes, they are the same. How then can we define operations research? The Operational Research Society of Great Britain has adopted the following definition:
Operational research is the application of the methods of science to com- plex problems arising in the direction and management of large systems of men, machines, materials and money in industry, business, government, and defense. The distinctive approach is to develop a scientific model of the system, incor- porating measurement of factors such as chance and risk, with which to predict and compare the outcomes of alternative decisions, strategies or controls. The purpose is to help management determine its policy and actions scientifically. The Operations Research Society of America has offered a shorter, but similar, description:
Operations research is concerned with scientifically deciding how to best design and operate man–machine systems, usually under conditions requiring the allo- cation of scarce resources. In general, most of the definitions of OR emphasize its methodology, namely its unique approach to problem solving, which may be due to the use of interdisciplinary teams or
History of Operations Research and Management Science xxiii
due to the application of scientific and mathematical models. In other words, each prob- lem may be analyzed differently, though the same basic approach of operations research is employed. As more research went into the development of OR, the researchers were able to classify to some extent many of the important management problems that arise in practice. Examples of such problems are those relating to allocation, inventory, network, queuing, replacement, scheduling, and so on. The theoretical research in OR concentrated on devel- oping appropriate mathematical models and techniques for analyzing these problems under different conditions. Thus, whenever a management problem is identified as belonging to a particular class, all the models and techniques available for that class can be used to study that problem. In this context, one could view OR as a collection of mathematical mod- els and techniques to solve complex management problems. Hence, it is very common to find OR courses in universities emphasizing different mathematical techniques of operations research such as mathematical programming, queueing theory, network analysis, dynamic programming, inventory models, simulation, and so on. For more on the early activities in operations research, see Refs. 1–5. Readers interested in the timeline of major contributions in the history of OR/MS are referred to the excellent review article by Gass [6].
References