Book Description

This text provides a survey of the analytical methods used to support the functions of production and operations management. The text contains thorough coverage of cutting-edge quantitative models used in operations, and yet it is presented in a clean, easy to understand fashion. This text reflects Steve Nahmias' extensive teaching background and experience in both business and engineering schools. The writing style is clean and crisp. Many examples are included to help students grasp the quantitative material. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Very clear, concise introduction into Operations Management
This is an excellent book for Operations Management electives at an MBA level or an introductory text for Operations majors at graduate school (both business and engineering). The book is self-contained and all the chapters can be studied independently. All the basics of the classical Operations Management are covered.

Estupendo!
Lo he usado para cursos de administracion (licenciatura y posgrado)y de ingenieria industrial. Resulta muy apropiado para ambos tipos de cursos. Existe version en espanol.

Definitly one of the best books about operation management
The book provides an easy introduction to the complex area of production and operation analysis. Nevertheless the relevant instruments and solutions in production and operation analysis are covered and the big picture of dealing with production and operations is shown clearly. The clear language, the illustrations and the examples make it a book best suitable for education and self-study. ... Read more

Book Description

OVERVIEW
This best-selling text continues in its sixth edition to provide the most current and comprehensive coverage of business research. Its student-friendly design contains numerous examples illustrating real-world research in management, marketing, finance, accounting, and other business areas. It is the ideal text for the undergraduate and first year MBA courses in marketing, management, or quantitative studies. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

An excellent text
i have been teaching Business Research to MBA classes for 5 years. I have gone through many text books and tried out several as recommended reading for my classes. None come even close to the readability and sheer ease of use of this book by Professor Zikmund. It is well organised, and gives comprehensive coverage to all aspects of research without getting bogged down in theory. The examples, end of chapter questions and cases are interesting and serve as excellent discussion points in class. I am happy to see a new edition is available and hope that it will contain some more up to date examples.

No Dust Bunnies!
This is one research methods text that will NOT be collecting dust bunnies on your shelf. It is extremely "user friendly" for the student/novice researcher but has the breadth and depth to remain useful to the expert and research professional. It is well organized so that you can skip around to the parts you need at the moment. It has lots of exercises and follow up readings/references to hammer home the content.

I had 16 weeks of statistical research methods as part of my Masters program. If I would have had this book, I would have understood and got much, much more out of those 16 weeks. If I had just one research methods book to buy, THIS is IT!

Don't waste your money on some academic text. Get this one and get the ability to hit the ground running with your research project!

A superb Text
I have been using Prof. William Zikmund's wonderful textbook, "Exploring Marketing Research," in my undergraduate marketing classes in the US since the early 1980s. When I started teaching "Research Methodolgy" to MBA students in Saudi Arabia some six years ago and discovered that Professor Zikmund has a text on the subject, I adopted that text without hesitation. The book is well written, easy to read and comprehend, and has several examples and very good applications and cases. I give it "A+" and recommend it to other professors and business researchers enthusiastically. ... Read more

Book Description

Are you fashion forward? Do you love working with the public? Is it your dream you to own and run your own business? Then it might just be time for you to marry your fashion sense and your business sense with a retail clothing business. The Limited, Banana Republic, The Gap, Urban Outfitters. All of those wildly successful clothing megachains began as small, independent stores. If you're fashion savvy, a clothing store could be your ticket to the top. You don't need any technical know-how. In fact, if you hire right and learn how the market works, you don't even need prior retailing experience- just this step-by-step guide. It gives you the inside scoop, on starting your own retail clothing store, including:

• Typical start-up expenses for low-end and high-end businesses
• How to spot trends and take advantage of them before your competitors do
• The importance of location and how to find the best spot for your store
• How to find, hire, and train the best employees
• Common mistakes and pitfalls to avoid
• Valuable tips on saving money during the start-up process
• Ways to work more efficiently and effectively

Declare your independence from bosses who don't have the know-how or drive that you know you can bring to your work! Like thousands of others, you can be your own boss, decide your own fate, set your own course and succeed by your own wit and courage. If you have the desire to help others look their best in the right clothes, this is the book that will put you on the road to establishing your own clothing empire.

Book Description

M->CREATED ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A MUST HAVE
If you are studying queueing methods or are an OR practitioner, then make this a mandatory text. If you are using Kleinrock or Gross & Harris, then buy this as a supplement!

This is a "quick and dirty handbook" for queueing! Mr. Hall not only provides you with the basics for understanding waiting line methods, but he also discusses how to design queues that minimize the waiting (time & psychology). I have numerous books on queueing methods (Kleinrock, Gross & Harris, Tanner, etc.); this one is the one to have on your desk!

Superb!!!
The title is off-puting to many mathematicians and engineers because it seems narrow. Nonetheless, many have caught on that this is a superb book by a real world practitioner in modeling who has great knowledge of the theory. The eminent queueing expert Ralph Disney gave this book a rave review in The UMAP Journal (of which I am reviews editor) and I myself have used this as a textbook in graduate courses on modeling and simulation. Highly recommended! ... Read more

Book Description

Revolutionizing Innovation and Performance Through New Experimentation Technologies

Every company's ability to innovate depends on a process of experimentation whereby new products and services are created and existing ones improved. But the cost of experimentation often limits innovation. New technologies-including computer modeling and simulation-promise to lift that constraint by changing the economics of experimentation. Never before has it been so economically feasible to ask "what-if" questions and generate preliminary answers. These technologies amplify the impact of learning, paving the way for higher R&D performance and innovation and new ways of creating value for customers.

In Experimentation Matters, Stefan Thomke argues that to unlock such potential, companies must not only understand the power of experimentation and new technologies, but also change their processes, organization, and management of innovation. He explains why experimentation is so critical to innovation, underscores the impact of new technologies, and outlines what managers must do to integrate them successfully.

Drawing on a decade of research in multiple industries as diverse as automotive, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and banking, Thomke provides striking illustrations of how companies drive strategy and value creation by accommodating their organizations to new experimentation technologies. As in the outcome of any effective experiment, Thomke also reveals where that has not happened, and explains why. In particular, he shows managers how to:

• Implement "front-loaded" innovation processes that identify potential problems before resources are committed and design decisions locked in
• Experiment and test frequently without overloading their organizations
• Integrate new technologies into the current innovation system
• Organize for rapid experimentation
• Fail early and often but avoid wasteful "mistakes"
• Manage projects as experiments

Pointing to the custom integrated circuit industry-a multibillion dollar market-Thomke also shows what happens when new experimentation technologies are taken beyond firm boundaries, thereby changing the way companies create new products and services with customers and suppliers.

Probing and thoughtful, Experimentation Matters will influence how both executives and academics think about experimentation in general and innovation processes in particular. Experimentation has always been the engine of innovation, and Thomke reveals how it works today.

... Read more

Reviews (8)

Innovation redefined
Observation, exploration and experimentation have been the three basic means of learning for scientists. Of these, experimentation calls for the highest levels of external intervention and as a topic by itself has always been of interest to statisticians who have developed powerful techniques to derive maximum information through the least possible number of experiments. Application of these statistical techniques has resulted in substantial reduction in research expenditure, quicker understanding of scientific principles and shorter time to convert ideas into useful products. On the other hand new technologies like simulation, CAD/CAE that harness the advances in computing have completely changed the experimental landscape by providing powerful techniques for rapid and economical experimentation on our desktops and servers. To cite one example discussed in this book, car maker BMW's crash simulation test progressed from 3000 to 700000 finite elements between 1982 to 2002 while simultaneously resulting in reduction of processing time from 3 months to 30 hours. Power of computing enables "front-loaded" innovation - understanding the phenomenon before committing resources into physical manufacturing.

But the lacuna is that experimentation has never been thought as a separate management discipline cutting across functional silos to bring innovative solutions into the marketplace. Experimentation as a strategic tool that needs management attention and involvement is the core theme of this book.

Management deals with producing results under uncertainty. Uncertainty can be broadly classified under technical, production, market and customer needs. Experimentation should tell us not only what will work, but also what does NOT work. The knowledge so derived should seamlessly flow across the Design-Build-Run-Analyze cycle that cuts across departmental boundaries in large organizations. This is analogous to the concept of ERP in business processes. Though this concepts looks simple, organizational barriers prevent the seamless sharing of information for innovation. Design, manufacturing , marketing and procurement functions fail to optimize on the organizational repository of knowledge that can put winning products into the marketplace. This book is an excellent study on how management can use experimentation as a unique strategy within and beyond organizational boundaries. Case studies are quite detailed and well illustrated.

Read this book. It is worth experimenting.

This book matters!
The way to succeed is to double your failure rate. That comment by Thomas Watson, Sr. is not among the innovators' words of wisdom in Stefan Thomke's densely informative exploration of technologies and processes of experimentation but it perfectly fits the message. Central to Thomke's message in this book is the idea that iterated experimentation through the use of models, prototypes, and computer simulations is the key to learning and innovation. Getting the key to fit in the lock of increased organizational innovation capability, however, takes some jiggling and struggling. Experimentation Matters details the technologies that can transform innovation but place just as much emphasis on the changes that must be made to business processes, organization, culture, incentives, and management. Thomke provides plenty of detailed illustrations of companies wrestling with these issues, and offers six principles revolving to help companies experiment early and often and to organize for rapid iteration.

The first part of the book explains in depth the reasons why experimentation matters for learning and innovation, and how new technologies are affecting the development of both products and services. Thomke shows how the rate of learning is influenced by several factors that affect the process and how it is managed: fidelity, cost, iteration time, capacity, sequential and parallel strategies, signal-to-noise ratio, and type of experiment. Beneath the bewildering diversity of approaches to innovation in different industries, Thomke uncovers six principles that can improve how experimentation occurs: Anticipate and exploit early information through front-loaded innovation processes; Experiment frequently but do not overload your organization; Integrate new and traditional technologies to unlock performance; Organize for rapid experimentation; Fail early and often but avoid "mistakes"; and Manage projects as experiments.

In the final chapter, Thomke looks at how some companies are "shifting the locus of experimentation" to customers as a way to create new value. This approach, sometimes referred to as "co-creation", not only raises productivity but helps fundamentally change the sorts of products and services that can be created. Innovation toolkits given to customers need to enable them to iterate through the steps of experimentation, be user-friendly, contain libraries of useful, pretested and debugged components and modules, and they must contain information abut the capabilities and limitations of the production process. In addition to the development of a customer toolkit, Thomke adds four other steps for shifting experimentation and innovation to customers and, very importantly, notes how the creation and capture of value also shifts.

One great strength of Thomke's book is the attention given to the managerial and organizational challenges of implementing new technologies such as computer modeling and simulation and combinatorial and high-throughput testing. As other writers have repeatedly emphasized - but many managers have not yet understood - new technologies *must* be introduced only in concert with revised business processes, structures, and management approaches. Iterated experimentation helps learning by increasing the number of failures. But if incentives continue to punish failures, the new technologies will be underused or misused. Financial incentives, organizational culture, and management communications will have to change if experimenters are to feel free to fail at the most productive rate.

Thomke illustrates and details the crucial role of organization, process, and management in realizing the potential of experimentation technologies with a range of illuminating cases. He devotes a chapter to these effects in the integrated circuit industry, examines the challenges faced by Bank of America in its bold service experimentation efforts, and shows how managers at Eli Lilly struggled with non-technological aspects of high-powered experimentation in the drug discovery process. A study of experimentation in the auto industry, particularly at BMW, suggests several lessons regarding the reality of technology introduction: Technologies are limited by the processes and people that use them; organizational interfaces can get in the way of experimentation; and technologies change faster than behavior. Thomke also shows how managers can look at projects as experiments, reiterating, refining, and learning from them as they proceed through the stages of design, build, run, and analyze.

Buy This Book!
Buy this book!! Thomke's important new book on innovation is the best that I have read. As a lecturer in product development, I would recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in innovation. In particular, it will be of benefit to company executives wishing to improve the efficacy and efficiency of new technology generation and product development within their firms and students of all levels in this area.

New technologies have allowed for experimentation to be conducted on a much larger scale and in a much more cost effective fashion than ever before. However, what most organisations do not realise is that merely employing new technologies is not sufficient to unlock their true value. The organisation itself must be structured to fully exploit their potential. In today's competitive environment, innovation is crucial and speed is the essence. How this can be done most effectively within organisations is the critical issue addressed in this book. Six simple yet practical principles have been promulgated by Thomke to help senior managers optimise value from experimentation.

The importance of experimentation in driving innovation is wonderfully highlighted and Thomke discusses important paradigms such as failing often to succeed sooner as well as contemporary issues thrown up by new technologies such as what to do with the opportunity to experiment more. He even delves into real-world issues of engineers not trusting computer simulations resulting in the seeming paradox of even more physical prototyping.

The book is written in a highly readable style which engages the reader. Particularly fascinating are the case study examples which illustrate vividly the importance of experimentation in driving innovation and the practical value of the principles which he advocates. These studies cover such diverse companies as Eli Lilly, BMW and there is even one on the design of yachts for the America's Cup! User-friendly boxes explaining important concepts such as computer simulation make the book accessible even to those unfamiliar to this field.

All in all, this is an excellent book and it is highly recommended. Five Stars!

Innovation through Experimentation
Stefan Thomke has produced a landmark book that beautifully reinforces an often ignored aspect about innovation -- experimentation matters. Indeed, experimentation is at the heart of innovation, and Thomke has delivered that much-needed message very well. Drawing upon his extensive research and with many insightful case studies from across the industries, Thomke's book is a powerful account of how new technologies and processes
can be leveraged to innovate and compete. This book is a "must read" for anyone who believes that innovation will increasingly be the driving element of competitive success, and that strategic experimentation design and management are at the center stage of innovation. Those not believing so, needless to say, will obviously be left behind. Read this book now and implement its ideas faster than your competitors.

Sound Experimentation
The book's significance lies in Stefan Thomke's idea that sound experimentation is at the crux of the innovation process. This is a departure from either the fairly generalised thinking about product development and/or innovation, on the one hand, and the overly specific focus on techniques like simulation, on the other, that one tends to find nowadays. Experimentation is, of course, an old and commonplace idea in scientific circles and in some specialised management areas. But I believe this book will lead the way in making experimentation a crucial part of mainstream corporate management.

Thomke has developed his own conceptual framework for this purpose consisting of the four stages of "design-build-run-analyse". He focuses on a wide range of new experimentation technologies (including simulation) and he has studied how they are applied in a wide range of industries. He makes it a point to distill the knowledge thus gained into sets of principles, key factors, steps, findings etc at regular intervals. Thus the book's contents have been made highly accessible to a managerial audience. Managers will appreciate the challenge Thomke presents of tapping into the full potential of experimentation.

The book should also prove a valuable academic resource in management given the rigour of the research and its great managerial relevance. In fact, Thomke's cutting edge idea of customer toolkits for innovation (which catapult experimentation from the corporate realm to the customer domain) is already germinating in India. I, myself, have published a scholarly article on it very recently and I know others who have devoted sessions to it in top-flight MBA and executive programs here.

The book should make for absorbing reading by the management community worldwide and I recommend it highly. ... Read more

Book Description

This Fifth Edition reflects the ever-increasing changes in the tools and technology available today. Duane Davis teaches students and managers how to develop ways to efficiently and effectively plan, collect, organize, and assimilate information to make informed business decisions. This book covers the fundamentals of conducting research as well as the recent advancements in the field of business research such as the use of the Internet, qualitative research, and modern analytical tools (SPSS and Excel).The new edition is available packaged with the SPSS Student Version Software. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Excellent Book
As I found this Book very useful for our studies. Actually this book was designed for senior level Business and Research students. I myself studying MBA in electronic commerce manage to see this book from my Tutor for few days. It contains lot of real time examples and large source of research information for everybody. Its wonderful for all of us. Yes I do recommend this book for all interested , I mean all fellow colleagues and other senior level maangers and academics as well.

Dinesh ... Read more

Book Description

Zero Inventories is the definitive work on JIT! It is written for the key people in industry--managers, engineers, staff professionals and foremen, showing how to solve inventory problems and achieve stockless production. Its wide range of topics include: forecasting and inventory control methods; material requirements planning; systems for scheduling operations in manufacturing, procurement, logistics and project planning; systems for master scheduling and corporate planning; organizational problems of installing and managing new systems. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A must read for those interested in JIT
This book encompasses all the main issues of JIT which are covered deeply. Even so, the writing style is overly dense and it makes hard to go through the text. It's a reference book on all the literature in inventory but a bit out of date. ... Read more

Book Description

Linear Programming: Foundations and Extensions is an introduction to the field of optimization. The book emphasizes constrained optimization, beginning with a substantial treatment of linear programming, and proceeding to convex analysis, network flows, integer programming, quadratic programming, and convex optimization.

The book is carefully written. Specific examples and concrete algorithms precede more abstract topics. Topics are clearly developed with a large number of numerical examples worked out in detail.Moreover, Linear Programming: Foundations and Extensions underscores the purpose of optimization: to solve practical problems on a computer. Accordingly, the book is coordinated with free efficient C programs that implement the major algorithms studied:

+The two-phase simplex method; +The primal--dual simplex method; +The path-following interior-point method; +The homogeneous self-dual methods.In addition, there are online JAVA applets that illustrate various pivot rules and variants of the simplex method, both for linear programming and for network flows.Also, check the book's webpage for new online instructional tools and exercises that have been added in the new edition. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Professor Robert Freund's review
This is a much more detailed one as compared to the other two and was penned by MIT ORC Professor Robert Freund.

Summary. This book presents a thoroughly modern treatment of linear programming that achieves a healthy balance between theory, implementation, computation, and between the simplex method and interior-point methods. It's most novel feature is that it is written in a delightful and refreshing conversational style, that bespeaks the author's teaching style and relaxed wit. It is a pleasure to read: students will find the book to be friendly and engaging, while professors will find in the book a wealth of teaching material, nicely organized and packaged for classroom use. The book is also meant to be used in conjunction with a public-available website that contains software for various algorithms, additional exercises, and demos of algorithms.
The need for new linear programming textbooks. The world of linear programming has changed dramatically in the last ten years. For one thing, the incredible changes in computer technology have made it easy to solve truly huge LPs, and routine LP problems solve in fractions of a second even on a personal computer. As a result, the study of linear programming algorithms is of less interest to the casual student. (In a similar vein, we usually do not teach students how to efficiently compute square roots; we simply presume they can press the right buttons on their calculator.) On the other hand, because we can now solve truly gigantic linear programs, issues of computer implementation, numerical stability, and software architecture, etc., are as important for the serious optimizer as is, say, duality theory. Furthermore, the development and recognition of the importance of interior point methods has changed the landscape of linear programming significantly, so that linear programming is no longer synonymous with the simplex method, and a modern treatment of LP must also present an in-depth treatment of the most important interior point methods.

Vanderbei's book is thoroughly modern. Vanderbei's book is completely up-to-date. Aside from a nice treatment of the simplex method, it also contains a very up-to-date treatment of interior point methods, including the homogeneous self-dual formulation and algorithm (which might soon become the dominant algorithm in practice and theory). It contains extensive material on issues of implementation of both the simplex algorithm and interior point algorithms. A politician might call it a book for the 21st century.

Vanderbei's book has many novel features. This book is quite different from most other textbooks on LP in a number of important ways. For starters, the standard form of a linear program in the book is the symmetric form of the problem (max c^T x | Ax <= b, x >= 0), as opposed to the usual form (min c^T x | Ax=b, x >= 0). This difference allows for an easier treatment of duality, and allows one to see the geometry of linear programming more easily as well. The symmetric form also makes it easier to set up the homogeneous self-dual interior point algorithm. However, this form has the drawback that discussions of bases, basic feasible solutions, and some of the mechanics of the simplex method are all a bit more awkward. (The book uses the language of dictionaries to describe the essential information in a simplex method iteration.) The book has more of a focus on engineering applications than does the more typcial LP textbook (which tend to rely on business problems). For example, there is a nice chapter on optimization of engineering structures such as trusses. The book gives a very broad treatment of interior point methods, including several topics that are not usually found in textbooks such as the homogeneous self-dual formulation and algorithm, quadratic programming via interior point methods, and general convex optimization via interior point methods.

These novel features are good in that the author has clearly tried to be innovative and to build an LP text from the ground up, without regard for past texts.

Some Nice Features. There are some particularly nice features in the book. The book contains a much-simplified variant of the Klee-Minty polytope that allows for a more straightforward proof that the simplex method can visit exponentially many extreme points. In addition to proving strong duality, the book also presents Tucker's strict complementarity theorem, which has become important in the new view of sensitivity analysis, optimal partitions, and interior point methods. The book also contains a nice treatment of the steepest edge pivot rule, which has recently emerged as an important component in speeding up the performance of the simplex algorithm. In the treatment of interior point methods, the author spends very little time on polynomial time bounds and guarantees (as a theorist, I like to see this material), instead adding value by discussing important computational and implemention issues, including ordering heuristics, strategies for solving the KKT system by Newton's method, etc. The book sometimes has an engineer's feel for the proofs, which is good for students but is a bit frustrating to hard-core math types such as myself. There are many instances where the proof is just a proof via an example. This is consistent with the conversational and informal style of the text, and this informality spills over into the mathematics on occasion.

This book has style. As mentioned earlier, the book has a wonderfully appealing conversational style. While the author does not purposely go out of his way to be cute and corny, he succeeds in leaving the reader grinning with his humor. There are some passages that are downright funny, but the style succeeds mostly by default. One section on the issue of modeling the anchoring of truss design problems is called Anchors Away, the subsection on updating factorizations to reduce fill-in is aptly called Shrinking the Bump. And there is the hint of a racy discussion of an application of Konig's Theorem involving boys and girls that the curious reader might enjoy.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed reviewing this book, and I highly recommend the book as a textbook for an advanced undergraduate or master's level course in linear programming, particularly for courses in an engineering environment. In addition, the book also is a good reference book for interior point methods as well as for implementation and computational aspects of linear programming. This is an excellent new book.

Excellent book
Very clearly written. Unlike most math books, the notation is easy to understand for engineers and programmers. I found the free online version first, and then decided to buy the hard copy.

Profesor
That book is excelent from class and practice. Very important in undergraduate and postgraduate. Thanks you. ... Read more

Book Description

In The Emerging Consensus of Social Systems Theory Bausch summarizes the works of over 30 major systemic theorists. He then goes on to show the converging areas of consensus among these out-standing thinkers.Bausch categorizes the social aspects of current systemic thinking as falling into five broadly thematic areas: designing social systems, the structure of the social world, communication, cognition and epistemology.These five areas are foundational for a theoretic and practical systemic synthesis. They were topics of contention in a historic debate between Habermas and Luhmann in the early 1970's. They continue to be contentious topics within the study of social philosophy.Since the 1970's, systemic thinking has taken great strides in the areas of mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, and sociology. This book presents a spectrum of those theoretical advances. It synthesizes what various strains of contemporary systems science have to say about social processes and assesses the quality of the resulting integrated explanations.Bausch gives a detailed study of the works of many present-day systems theorists, both in general terms, and with regard to social processes. He then creates and validates integrated representations of their thoughts with respect to his own thematic classifications. He provides a background of systemic thinking from an historical context, as well as detailed studies of developments in sociological, cognitive and evolutionary theory.This book presents a coherent, dynamic model of a self-organizing world. It proposes a creative and ethical method of decision-making and design. It makes explicit the relations between structure and process in the realms of knowledge and being. The new methodology that evolves in this book allows us to deal with enormous complexity, and to relate ideas so as to draw out previously unsuspected conclusions and syntheses. Therein lies the elegance and utility of this model. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

No end to the fresh ideas
People new to systems thinking and cybernetics are looking for handy resources to get started. This book requires something more. However, once a person gains a basic understanding, this book has proven to me to be one of the best. It points the reader in a number of directions for further study, and gives a useful summary of what the reader will find there.

Its treatment of the famous Luhmann-Habermas debates was especially helpful, and I plan to use a number of other sections in my own studies and college teaching for some time to come. I find that the writer understood the importance of orienting the reader who hadn't been comfortable with the science and mathematics that often go with systems thinking.

The author does an especially good job trying to integrate certain concerns with democracy, participative management, and widespread involvement that a systems approach sometimes neglects in pursuit of social engineering by a technical elite.

This book was heavier than a simple introduction, so it is not exactly the front door to systems thinking, but I have found it to be a hallway to many rooms that I am still exploring -- thanks to Kenneth Bausch. ... Read more

Book Description

Stochastic processes are found in probabilistic systems that evolve with time. Discrete stochastic processes change by only integer time steps (for some time scale), or are characterized by discrete occurrences at arbitrary times. Discrete Stochastic Processes helps the reader develop the understanding and intuition necessary to apply stochastic process theory in engineering, science and operations research. The book approaches the subject via many simple examples which build insight into the structure of stochastic processes and the general effect of these phenomena in real systems.The book presents mathematical ideas without recourse to measure theory, using only minimal mathematical analysis. In the proofs and explanations, clarity is favored over formal rigor, and simplicity over generality. Numerous examples are given to show how results fail to hold when all the conditions are not satisfied.Audience: An excellent textbook for a graduate level course in engineering and operations research. Also an invaluable reference for all those requiring a deeper understanding of the subject. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Worth having!
Although the aesthetics (print, figures etc) of the book leave something to be desired, this is definitely a book one can get a lot out of. Gallager's treatment of the subject matter favors simplicity and his thought process is usually easy to follow. Occasionally one finds less than water tight proofs but all in all this is a great addition to the bookshelf.

Great Book
A great book to have. The book gives you real deep insight into the theorems of probability, queing systems and discrete stochastic processes. What most advanced level books on stochastic processes dont have is the explaination of the theorems because authors assume the audiance to be mathematicians. Gallegers book is more for engineers and less for mathematicicans. ... Read more

Book Description

This is a comprehensive analysis of the present state of organization theory. The author traces the evolution and particularly the more recent history of the field, and its scope and content. He then considers the relevant literature organized by major issues and concepts. Jeffrey Pfeffer makes the point that the world of organizations the book surveys has changed in four important ways: the increasing externalization of the employment relation and the development of the "new employment contract;" the change in the size distribution of organizations, with a comparative growth in the proportion of smaller organizations; the increasing influence of external capital markets on organizational governance and decision making; and the increasing salary inequality within organizations in the U.S. compared both to the past and to other industrialized nations. These changes make it especially important to understand the organizations themselves. But the author raises the very real question of whether the field of organization studies has increased this understanding. The author is a major scholar in the field of organizations and his perspective should be of considerable interest to scholars and students in the field. ... Read more

Book Description

Melnyk and Denzler have written a text that looks at operations management from a different perspective value. In this text, value is a dynamic theme that brings together the issues of performance, cost, competitive reactions, and customer expectations. By using a value-driven perspective, the authors enable students to view every activity in the operations management system in terms of its ability to enhance value. Students learn to evaluate: who current customers are and who new customers will be; what the customer wants; the degree of overlap between the current operations management system and the demands and expectations of customers; how to structure the OM system to deliver value; and, finally, how to measure performance. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A great book, but buy it on ebay
Great intro and thorough review of operations for any manager or student. Author adheres to clear, relatable and practical concepts. A little pricey in my opinion.

Compleat Guide: How Firms Make & Provide Goods and Services
Studying for APICS CIRM (Certification in Integrated Resource Management), I have accumulated a shelf full of books about enterprise management. "Operations Management: A Value-Driven Approach" rises above all the others. It is large book, almost 1000 pages. It covers all the operations management bases (and all the acronyms), including just-in-time, total quality, demand and supply chain, inventory and materials including MRP and MRPII, planning and scheduling, and so forth. It is a well organized and clearly written textbook, with good examples and problems throughout.

The best, however, is this book's point of view: Delivering VALUE to customers and stakeholders is the raison d'etre for the enterprise. If it doesn't do this well - compared to customer expectations and the competition - it won't survive. Moreover, delivering value is dynamic. The enterprise must constantly improve and its processes, products and services, to respond to the constantly changing needs of its customers. This book brilliantly applies this value-delivery critera throughout, putting techniques and frameworks such as JIT and TQM in proper perspective. Published in 1996, this book is becoming a bit dated in this age of the World Wide Web and virtual marketplaces. (A suggestion: revise and expand the book to cover e-Commerce, including business-to-consumer and business-to-business, to maintain, in my opinion, it solid 5-star rating.) Still, "Operations Management" does a good job anticipating new technologies and marketplaces, and the fact that the enterprise must constantly respond to these changes.

This book is a classic. It deserves to be read by every serious student - and every practicing manager - of operations.

Amazon offers the lowest prices?
Amazon lists this book for over 100 dead presidents. The campus book stores in the area sell it for around 90 dead presidents. College book stores are not known for their great discount prices, so why does Amazon sell this book for so much? ... Read more

Book Description

Project Management, 2/e is a text with cases, and it is suitable for a course in project management and for professionals who seek a project management handbook.This text addresses the major questions and issues the authors have encountered while teaching and consulting with practicing project managers domestically and abroad. Focusing on applications, this text provides a road map for managing any type of project¾extending the boundaries of project management from traditional project-oriented industries such as construction and aerospace to information technology, R & D, engineering design, pharmaceutical, and services.Besides covering a broad range of industries, Project Management: The Managerial Process is distinguished by the fact that it balances the coverage of the technical aspects of project management with the behavioral aspects. The reader is introduced to the strategic role of projects in contemporary organizations, how projects are prioritized, what tools and techniques can be used to plan and schedule projects, what organization and managerial styles will improve chances of project success, how project managers orchestrate complex networks of relationships, what factors contribute to the development of a high performing project team, how the project system helps to insure some measure of control, how project managers need to be aware of cultural influences in preparing for an international project, and how senior management can develop a supportive organizational culture for implementing projects. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Project Management: The Managerial Process w/ Student CD-ROM
Greeat book seller.....Great condition......A+++++++++++++++......I would like to work with you again... ... Read more

Book Description

Fully integrated with the personal computer, this easy-to-use book provides readers with the skills to necessary to apply the techniques of quantitative analysis in all kinds of organizational decision-making situations. It covers every major topic in the quantitative analysis/management science field, showing how each technique works, discussing the assumptions and limitations of the models, and illustrating the real-world usefulness of each technique with many applications and case studies in both profit-making and nonprofit organizations. A FREE CD-ROM readers can use to solve the examples presented in the book is conveniently packaged with the book providing Excel QM, Crystal Ball, TreePlan, QM for Windows and data files for examples.Probability Concepts and Applications, Decision Theory, Decision Trees with Utility Theory, Forecasting, Inventory Control Models, Linear Programming Models, Linear Programming: The Simplex Method. Transportation and Assignment Models, Integer Programming, Goal Programming, Non Linear Programming, and Branch and Bound Models, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Network Models, Project Management, Waiting Lines and Queuing Theory Models, Simulation Modeling, Markov Analysis, Using QM for Windows, Using Excel OM.Appropriate for business managers and analysts. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A book for graduates--Not undergrads
After the first week of our class falling behind, my professor mentioned to our class that this book was the wrong format for undergrads. So this book is only good as the teacher and the students. It's easy to read, but hard to understand. And, the CD-ROM was not user-friendly enough, but had an awesome integration into MS Excel. I aced all of my math classes in college (undergrad), but this class...I'm not gonna to ace. But if you aced all math classes and you're using this book for a grad class, then go for it. Otherwise, find another book.

Great Book
I had one of the worst instructors on the planet this semester. I literally had to teach myself this entire course.
This book made it so much easier. Great diagrams, simple explanations. I ended up with an A.

Easy to follow
This book is easy to follow and the included cd makes solving the problems easy. It also has online links for each chapter. ... Read more

Book Description

If you are responsible for your organization’s next employee survey, what would 15 years of experience be worth to you? This new publication gives you the benefit of those years. This book and its companion will save you thousands of dollars. "Employee Surveys: Practical and Proven Methods," is filled with examples from real-world surveys done by organizations of all sizes and types. It contains sample forms, agendas, letters, and more, all of them from actual employee survey situations. This book is organized to follow the process from start to finish. It covers the unexpected moments you may not know how to manage. Whether you plan to "do it yourself" or you work with an outside vendor, this book will help you get the information, understand the results, communicate them effectively, and take meaningful action. In summary, it will help you make the most of your survey efforts. The second volume, "Employee Survey Question Guidebook," is unique in its field. It brings you 650 tried-and-true questionnaire items from employee surveys developed by Performance Programs, Inc., a human resources survey firm since 1987. Using the instructions supplied in the book, you can select questionnaire items, or create your own items, and develop an employee survey. ... Read more

Book Description

This book provides a basic treatment of discrete-event simulation, one of the most widely used operations research and management science tools for dealing with system design in the presence of uncertainty. Proper collection and analysis of data, use of analytic techniques, verification and validation of models and the appropriate design of simulation experiments are treated extensively. Readily understandable to those having a basic familiarity with differential and integral calculus, probability theory and elementary statistics.Includes simulation in C++, the latest versions of the most widely used packages, and features of simulation output analysis software. Covers properties, modeling and random-variate generation from the lognormal distribution. Clarifies the difficult distinctions between terminating and steady-state simulation, and between within- and across-replication statistics. Contains up-to-date treatment of simulation of manufacturing and material handling systems. Emphasizes the hierarchical nature of computing systems, and how simulation techniques vary, depending on the level of abstraction.For readers wanting to learn more about system simulation. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Gives a well-written and complete introduction
This book provides a very good introduction to discrete-event simulation. The authors start out by providing several simple examples in areas such as queueing and inventory systems, as well as reliability. After the first few chapters the reader gets a sense of what simulation represents and why it is done. In later chapters they score high marks in introducing more advanced issues, such as probability models, random number and random variate generators, queueing theory, and input modeling.

In closing, the book makes for a very good junior or senior-level introduction to simulation, and I especially am thankful that the presentation was made independent of any simulation package. Instead it focuses on those things that any good simulation package/language should have (e.g. random-number generators, built-in objects for customers and servers, statistical support for evaluating hypotheses about collected data, etc.).

statictical simulation
This book contains very well topics as input and output analysis, verification and validation, random number generation etc. I strongly recommend this book as an introduction of theoric simulation.

Comprehensive, updated, great book of simulation systems
Banks revised his great book with updated simulation package and information. Several new issues, such as, tools/softwares, random-variable generation, simulation termination, how to use Simulation to analysis and design computer system, many downloadable examples. Sufficient theories, to understand Simulation, are given, for instance, the Statistics and Queueing theories. Two chapters are dedicated for random-number generation. One chapter is dedicated for verification and validation of simulation models. Although it's only one chapter, several references are given for further study. IE or logistic practioner will enjoy since one chapter is for manufacturing and material handling system (wow!). Very good reference and practice.

A complete vision
This book brings a very complete explanation about what Discrete Event System Simulation is. From the very beginning, they introduce what Simulation is by means of simple examples that you can manage by hand. They also give a comprehensive explanation about how to determine the apropiate distribution functions to use in the simulation. And how to statistically analyze the simulation results. The book also include a comprehensive brochure of different simulation languages. ... Read more

Book Description

The logic of Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) is usually implemented in production planning and control systems and therefore has a major impact on the performance of many real production systems. Much of what practitioners complain about, i.e. long lead times, high work-in-process, and large inventories, is due to the deficiencies of the MRP II concept. Thus, researchers are eager to find better models and methods to improve or to replace the current status. This book contains new ideas on master production scheduling, material requirements planning, lot sizing, sequencing and scheduling, and production control. Management scientists, industrial engineers, operations researchers, and computer scientists have contributed to present the state-of-the-art. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (1)

Chapter review
I just read the chapter by Pool and DeSanctis. It is perhaps one of the best reviews of Structuration theory in IS research. It presents a great summary of research till now, and also lays foundation for new research in that area.

A must for any new PhD. ... Read more