Operations Research: A Practical Introduction is just that: a hands-on approach to the field of operations research (OR) and a useful guide for using OR techniques in scientific decision making, design, analysis and management. The text accomplishes two goals. First, it provides readers with an introduction to standard mathematical models and algorithms. Second, it is a thorough examination of practical issues relevant to the development and use of computational methods for problem solving.
Highlights:
All chapters contain up-to-date topics and summaries A succinct presentation to fit a one-term course Each chapter has references, readings, and list of key terms Includes illustrative and current applications New exercises are added throughout the text Software tools have been updated with the newest and most popular software
Many students of various disciplines such as mathematics, economics, industrial engineering and computer science often take one course in operations research. This book is written to provide a succinct and efficient introduction to the subject for these students, while offering a sound and fundamental preparation for more advanced courses in linear and nonlinear optimization, and many stochastic models and analyses.
It provides relevant analytical tools for this varied audience and will also serve professionals, corporate managers, and technical consultants.
About the Author
Michael W. Carter is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and IndustrialEngineering at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario (since 1981) and foundingdirector of the Centre for Healthcare Engineering (in 2009). He received his PhD inCombinatorics and Optimization from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario. Healso spent seven years at Waterloo as a full-time Systems Analyst in the Data ProcessingDepartment. He is a member of the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS), theInstitute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the HealthApplications Society (of INFORMS), the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering(IISE) and the Society for Health Systems (SHS). He is the Canadian representative forORAHS (EURO: Operations Research Applied to Health Services).Since 1989, his research focus has been in the area of health care resource modeling andcapacity planning. As of January 2018, Dr. Carter had supervised 23 PhD students and90 Masters and directed more than 250 undergraduate engineering students in over 100projects with industry partners. He has over 100 former students who now work in thehealthcare industry. He is cross appointed to the Institute of Health Policy, Managementand Evaluation (IHPME) and the School of Public Policy & Governance at the Universityof Toronto.Dr. Carter teaches undergraduate courses in Healthcare Systems and EngineeringEconomics. Graduate courses include Healthcare Engineering, Healthcare Research andan Introduction to Operations Research for students in a part-time Master of HealthAdministration (MHSc) in IHPME.He was the winner of the Annual Practice Prize from the Canadian Operational ResearchSociety (CORS) four times (1988, 1992, 1996, and 2009). In 2000, he received the CORS Awardof Merit for lifetime contributions to Canadian Operational Research. He also receivedan Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Toronto Student AdministrativeCouncil. He is on the editorial board for the journals Health Care Management Science, Operations Research for Health Care, Health Systems, and IISE Transactions on HealthcareSystems. He is an adjunct scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences inToronto (www.ices.on.ca) and a member of the Faculty Advisory Council for the Universityof Toronto Chapter of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He is a member ofthe Professional Engineers of Ontario. In 2012, he was inducted as a Fellow of the CanadianAcademy of Engineering and in 2013, he was inducted as a Fellow of INFORMS, the internationalsociety for Operations Research and Management Science.Camille C. Price has been a professor of Computer Science at Stephen F. Austin StateUniversity, Nacogdoches, Texas, and she now continues her academic association as emeritusprofessor. She has also held faculty appointments at the University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas; Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas; Colby College, Waterville, Maine; and Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts; and was a Visiting Scholar inthe Center for Cybernetic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas.She holds BA and MA degrees in Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin, and the PhD degree from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, with graduatespecializations in Computing Science and Operations Research. She held a research fellowshipat the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, and subsequently was engaged as a technical consultant for research projectsat the JPL. Professional memberships include the Institute for Operations Research andthe Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the INFORMS Computing Society, life membershipin the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the IEEE ComputerSociety, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Sigma Xi Scientific ResearchSociety.Dr. Price has been the principal investigator on a variety of research projects fundedby the National Science Foundation and the State of Texas. She has twice received NASAAwards in recognition of technical innovation in task scheduling and resource allocationin specialized computer networks. She reviews research proposals for the National ScienceFoundation and the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Shehas served as an advisory consultant for program accreditation assessments and curriculumreviews at universities in Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Jordan; and as a member ofthe research advisory board for the Texas Department of Transportation. As a consultantfor IBM Corporation, she has taught courses in advanced operating systems to IBM technicalemployees in Tokyo, Rome, Texas, and Florida. She has been an editorial consultant andSeries Editor in Operations Research for CRC Press, and is currently the Series Editor ofthe Springer International Series in Operations Research and Management Science.Her primary responsibilities as a faculty member have involved teaching undergraduateand graduate courses in computer science and operations research, serving as graduateadvisor for computer science and directing graduate student research projects. She isthe recipient of Teaching Excellence Awards from her college and department; and herresearch interests and activities have resulted in numerous papers published in scientificjournals and presented at conferences.Dr. Price's research projects have addressed various topics in Operations Research. Herwork on heuristic algorithms for mathematical programming problems has been appliedto scheduling and allocation of tasks and resources in distributed computing systems, novel computer architectures, load balancing in multiprocessor computer systems, flowcontrol, routing, fault-tolerance in parallel computing systems, and design and analysis ofparallel methods for combinatorial optimization.Ghaith Rabadi is a professor of Engineering Management & Systems Engineering (EMSE)at Old Dominion University (ODU), Norfolk, Virginia. He received his PhD and MS inIndustrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida (UCF), Orlando, Florida, in1999 and 1996 respectively, and his BSc in Industrial Engineering from the University ofJordan, Amman, Jordan, in 1992. Prior to joining ODU in 2002, he worked at UCF as PostDoc where he led NASA funded projects on developing discrete-event simulations of theSpace Shuttle ground processes. He was then a visiting assistant professor at the departmentof Industrial Engineering & Management Systems at UCF. He then worked as aresearch director at Productivity Apex, a modeling and simulation firm based in Orlando, Florida.In summer 2003, he received the NASA Faculty Fellowship where he worked on operationmodeling and simulation of future space launch vehicles at NASA Langley ResearchCenter in Hampton, Virginia. For their work with NASA, he and his colleagues wereawarded the NASA Software Invention Award and the NASA Board Action InventionAward. In 2008, he received the Fulbright Specialist Program Award to work with the facultyat the German-Jordanian University in Amman, Jordan.He was a visiting professor for one year at the Department of Mechanical and IndustrialEngineering at Qatar University, Doha, Qatar, in 2013-2014 academic year. He taught graduateand undergraduate courses in Operations Research, Engineering Economics, andSimulation, and collaborated with the faculty on research pertaining to port operationsimulation and optimization.In 2016, he received ODU's Doctoral Mentoring Award for advising 14 PhD students tograduation over the past 14 years, and for continuing to work closely and publish with hisstudents. Most recently, he with a team of professors and PhD students received NATO'sGlobal Innovation Challenge Award for their work on humanitarian logistics optimization.Dr. Rabadi's research has been funded by NASA, NATO Allied TransformationCommand, Department of Homeland Security, Army Corps of Engineers, Department ofthe Army, Virginia Port Authority, Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, MITRE Corporation, Boeing, STIHL, CACI, Sentara Hospitals and Qatar Foundation.His research and teaching interests include Planning & Scheduling, OperationsResearch, Simulation Modeling and Analysis, Supply Chain Management & Logistics, andData Analytics. He has published a book, and over 100 peer reviewed journal and conferencearticles and book chapters. He is a co-founder and is currently the chief editor forthe International Journal of Planning and Scheduling.
