Book Description

Reports the results of discussions with representatives of refining firms, technologies and services providers, research institutions, and other organizations on current and future trends in the U.S. refining industry. Discussants were generally optimistic about the future of the industry but were concerned about the effects of environmental regulations. They recommended that the Department of Energy assume a more prominent policy role on refining and fuels issues. ... Read more

Book Description

This book shows how to improve well-known heuristics by randomizing and optimizing their parameters. The ten in-depth examples are designed to teach operations research and the theory of games and markets using the Internet. Each example is a simple representation of some important family of real-life problems. Remote Internet users can run the accompanying software. The supporting web sites include software for Java, C++, and other languages. Audience: Researchers and specialists in operations research, systems engineering and optimization methods, as well as Internet applications experts in the fields of economics, industrial and applied mathematics, computer science, engineering, and environmental sciences. ... Read more

Book Description

In recent years there has been an emerging interest in the process by which operational research is carried out in organisations. This has been driven by the rapid developments which have taken place in the discipline throughout the 1980s. During this time Operational Research (OR) has undergone a period of significant reappraisal and as a result a deeper understanding of OR and its use in an organisational setting has been gained. This book provides a broad historical context within which these recent developments can be evaluated and future change can be anticipated. Paul Keys brings together a collection of 19 readings drawn from the 1940s to the 1990s. Arranged in four chronologically ordered sections with introductory essays providing a thematic structure, this material acts as signpost to the major steps in the developments and understanding of OR as it is practiced. The book provides an opportunity for students who are not quantitatively oriented to appreciate the and strengths of the OR approach and will provide undergraduates and graduates with complementary reading to the standard techniques-based OR texts. ... Read more

Book Description

Best Practice: Process Innovation Management highlights best practice in innovation by bringing together practitioners and researchers in this field.

This book presents contributions from leading academics and practitioners involved with innovation. They bring together all the strands of research, best practice and advice establishing an essential source of information for all involved with process innovation management.

Combines key themes of 'best practice' and 'innovation'
Foreword and chapter by Professor Richard Duggan, the DTI's Innovation Director
Professor Zairi is head of the European Centre for TQM at the University of Bradford ... Read more

Book Description

Making decisions is certainly the most important task of a manager and it is often a very difficult one. This book offers a decision making procedure for solving complex problems step by step. Unlike other texts, the book focuses on problem analysis, on developing solution options and on establishing the decision making matrix.

The book is intended for decision makers in companies, in non-profit organisations and in public administration. It is an approach to helping them to solve complex problems successfully. The book is also addressed to students and to participants in executive courses.

Reviews (2)

Encyclopedias Are My Best Friends
People keep on badgering me about what do I do and how did I earn my living? Well, I am a management scientist. They respond with a blank stare.
Some time ago a curious person asked a management scientist, "What is Management Science?" The expert who was a wit answered, "Management Science is what management scientists do". But an even greater wit, C. West Churchman, overheard this and corrected the statement: "Management Science is what management scientists think they do. Today, there is an unequivocal answer: "Management Science is what is printed in the Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science".
So now when a friend badgers me I show the Encyclopedia, "This is what I and my colleagues do". He weighs the tome, leaves through and typically says "You told me you help management. This is a book on math. How come?" I shrug my shoulders, "As you can see, we find that math is the most effective way to deal with some management issues.
We need to realize that publication of an encyclopedia is a defining moment in our intellectual history. When in 1745 the publisher André Le Breton approached Denis Diderot (1713-1784), French philosopher, who also wrote novels, essays, plays, and art and literary criticism with a view to bringing out a French translation of Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopedia after two other translators had withdrawn from the project. Diderot undertook the task with the distinguished mathematician Jean Le Rond d'Alembert as coeditor but soon profoundly changed the nature of the publication, broadening its scope and turning it into a vast, new 35-volume work, Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des metiers which is usually known as the Encyclopédie . He gathered around him a team of dedicated litterateurs, scientists, and even priests, including Voltaire and Montesquieu. All were fired with a common purpose: to further knowledge by a "rational dictionary" and to bring out the essential principles and applications of every art and science.
Drs. Saul I. Gass and the late Carl M. Harris followed in the footsteps of Diderot and d'Alembert, gathered an international group of the best brains and produced the monumental 917-page tome of the Encyclopedia of OR/MS, with 228 major expository articles to provide decision makers and problem solvers "comprehensive overview of the wide range of ideas, methodologies, and synergistic forces that combine to form the pre-eminent decision-aiding fields of operations research and management science".

The Single Reference for Operations Research
This work provides an excellent reference for OR/MS. It would be difficult to identify a related topic not addressed. The entries are truly encyclopedic in nature, succinctly presenting material supported by key references. Besides broad coverage of major areas of OR useful for researchers venturing into new areas, separate entries provide information on key concepts. This greatly facilitates retrieving in-depth information. For example, decision analysis is covered as a general topic, while a separate entry provides information regarding certainty equivalents.

Of interest to military OR analysts, there are entries for battle modeling, combat model and combat simulation, military operations research, and military operations other than war. Interestingly there are also entries discussing US Air Force and Navy operations research while there does not seem to be one specific to Army OR. The military roots of OR is discussed in these entries, as well as that outlining the history of the Operations Research Office.

If the book has a weakness, it must be the index. While certainly a good effort, there seem to be a number of items in the entries that, had they been included in the index, would have made the book more useful. And while the encyclopedia can't be everything to everyone, I would have included more multivariate statistical topics notwithstanding my second sentence above. The cost of the book places it out of reach for most personal libraries. ... Read more

Book Description

Modeling Uncertainty: An Examination of Stochastic Theory, Methods, and Applications, is a volume undertaken by the friends and colleagues of Sid Yakowitz in his honor. Fifty internationally known scholars have collectively contributed 30 papers on modeling uncertainty to this volume. Each of these papers was carefully reviewed and in the majority of cases the original submission was revised before being accepted for publication in the book. The papers cover a great variety of topics in probability, statistics, economics, stochastic optimization, control theory, regression analysis, simulation, stochastic programming, Markov decision process, application in the HIV context, and others. There are papers with a theoretical emphasis and others that focus on applications. A number of papers survey the work in a particular area and in a few papers the authors present their personal view of a topic. It is a book with a considerable number of expository articles, which are accessible to a nonexpert - a graduate student in mathematics, statistics, engineering, and economics departments, or just anyone with some mathematical background who is interested in a preliminary exposition of a particular topic. Many of the papers present the state of the art of a specific area or represent original contributions which advance the present state of knowledge. In sum, it is a book of considerable interest to a broad range of academic researchers and students of stochastic systems. ... Read more

Book Description

RISK MANAGEMENT offers comprehensive training for tackling decisions involving risk.Bell and Schleifer combine nearly 50 years of teaching and consulting experience to give readers a book packed with essential strategies. ... Read more

Book Description

As its title implies, Advances in Multicriteria Analysis presents the most recent developments in multicriteria analysis and in some of its principal areas of application, including marketing, research and development evaluation, financial planning, and medicine. Special attention is paid to the interaction between multicriteria analysis, decision support systems and preference modeling. The five sections of the book cover: methodology; problem structuring; utility assessment; multi-objective optimisation; real world applications.Audience: Researchers and professionals who are operations researchers, management scientists, computer scientists, statisticians, decision analysts, marketing managers and financial analysts. ... Read more

Book Description

Pareto Charts describes how to use this special kind of bar chart to break down problems and focus on the most important parts.The information is presented in a straightforward, easy-to-understand manner through a series of exercises and case studies.Users of Plain & Simple Series learn how to select the right tool for the task at hand, collect the right data, interpret the data, and take appropriate action based on their findings. ... Read more

Book Description

Distributed decision making (DDM) has become of increasing importance in quantitative decision analysis. In applications like supply chain management, service operations, or managerial accounting, DDM has led to a paradigm shift. The book provides a unified approach to such seemingly diverse fields as multi-level stochastic programming, hierarchical production planning, principal agent theory, negotiations or contract theory. Different settings like multi-level one-person decision problems, multi-person antagonistic planning, and leadership situations are covered. Numerous examples and real-life planning cases illustrate the concepts. The new edition has been considerably expanded by additional chapters on supply chain management, service operations and multi-agent systems. ... Read more

Book Description

Yes, We're Open is designed to help small business owners avoid the many pitfalls in running a small business. Written to be an entertaining as well as an informative read, attorney William Manchee shares his experiences representing small business owners for over 25 years. Yes, We're Open focuses on the causes of small business failure and how to defend the troubled business while taking the necessary steps to turn it around. ... Read more

Book Description

The book consists of three parts: The first part reviews the development in axiomatic utility theory under risk since the axiomatization of expected utility by von Neumann and Morgenstein. The second part explores some approaches to represent preferences which exhibit boundary effects. The third part shows that many results of insurance economics derived in the expected utility framework do not remain valid with non-expected utility theory. ... Read more

Book Description

This report describes and assesses the current military HRM system, identifies and evaluates alternatives to that system, recommends approaches for testing or implementing the most-promising alternatives, and presents conclusions. ... Read more

Book Description

After the very successful ECC-Book on "E-conomy" this new report of the European Communication Council (ECC) analyzes from various perspectives the profound societal and economical change of the media economy, initiated by digitalization and networking. Against the background of the current media history, it highlights for example the role of the Internet hype as a pathfinder in a modified media society. The key question is concerned with how the medial future will be like. The report examines effects and new perspectives in the area of economy, society, and politics. The aspects of behavior, business models, legal and regulation questions, self-conception of society and media economy are mooted by international authors to enhance the reader's understanding of the medial future and to disclose options for action.

Book Description

The task of management has become increasingly complex in recent years. Chief executives and senior managers are confronted with the daunting challenge of making sense of a myriad of variables that affect the performance of business systems and of determining causal relationships that underlie seemingly unstructured problems.A wide gulf now exists between theory and practice in the field of management. Pronouncements by theorists have become increasingly unintelligible to practitioners, while practical propositions by management consultants -- often presented as recipes derived from experience and case studies -- often lack any firm theoretical foundation and are largely based on limited and unreliable hard evidence. This has given rise to many fashions in the way management is practised. The trouble with fashionable doctrines is that they come and go. And while they are in vogue, they can lead to the adoption of what may be regarded as management mispractices, namely practices rooted in questionable beliefs, which are based on false premises.This book is written for managers, management consultants, and students of management, including business school faculty. The range of topics included here should provoke the reader to ponder on the complexities of the multi-faceted managerial scene and to question the basis of many managerial practices as well as the validity of theories propounded in the literature. ... Read more