Operations Research: A Practical Introduction

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.

Michael W. Carter is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial

Engineering at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario (since 1981) and founding

director of the Centre for Healthcare Engineering (in 2009). He received his PhD in

Combinatorics and Optimization from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario. He

also spent seven years at Waterloo as a full-time Systems Analyst in the Data Processing

Department. He is a member of the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS), the

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the Health

Applications Society (of INFORMS), the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering

(IISE) and the Society for Health Systems (SHS). He is the Canadian representative for

ORAHS (EURO: Operations Research Applied to Health Services).

Since 1989, his research focus has been in the area of health care resource modeling and

capacity planning. As of January 2018, Dr. Carter had supervised 23 PhD students and

90 Masters and directed more than 250 undergraduate engineering students in over 100

projects with industry partners. He has over 100 former students who now work in the

healthcare industry. He is cross appointed to the Institute of Health Policy, Management

and Evaluation (IHPME) and the School of Public Policy & Governance at the University

of Toronto.

Dr. Carter teaches undergraduate courses in Healthcare Systems and Engineering

Economics. Graduate courses include Healthcare Engineering, Healthcare Research and

an Introduction to Operations Research for students in a part-time Master of Health

Administration (MHSc) in IHPME.

He was the winner of the Annual Practice Prize from the Canadian Operational Research

Society (CORS) four times (1988, 1992, 1996, and 2009). In 2000, he received the CORS Award

of Merit for lifetime contributions to Canadian Operational Research. He also received

an Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Toronto Student Administrative

Council. He is on the editorial board for the journals Health Care Management Science,

Operations Research for Health Care, Health Systems, and IISE Transactions on Healthcare

Systems. He is an adjunct scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in

Toronto (www.ices.on.ca) and a member of the Faculty Advisory Council for the University

of Toronto Chapter of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He is a member of

the Professional Engineers of Ontario. In 2012, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian

Academy of Engineering and in 2013, he was inducted as a Fellow of INFORMS, the international

society for Operations Research and Management Science.

Camille C. Price has been a professor of Computer Science at Stephen F. Austin State

University, Nacogdoches, Texas, and she now continues her academic association as emeritus

professor. 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 in

the 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 graduate

specializations in Computing Science and Operations Research. She held a research fellowship

at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,

California, and subsequently was engaged as a technical consultant for research projects

at the JPL. Professional memberships include the Institute for Operations Research and

the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the INFORMS Computing Society, life membership

in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the IEEE Computer

Society, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Sigma Xi Scientific Research

Society.

Dr. Price has been the principal investigator on a variety of research projects funded

by the National Science Foundation and the State of Texas. She has twice received NASA

Awards in recognition of technical innovation in task scheduling and resource allocation

in specialized computer networks. She reviews research proposals for the National Science

Foundation and the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. She

has served as an advisory consultant for program accreditation assessments and curriculum

reviews at universities in Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Jordan; and as a member of

the research advisory board for the Texas Department of Transportation. As a consultant

for IBM Corporation, she has taught courses in advanced operating systems to IBM technical

employees in Tokyo, Rome, Texas, and Florida. She has been an editorial consultant and

Series Editor in Operations Research for CRC Press, and is currently the Series Editor of

the Springer International Series in Operations Research and Management Science.

Her primary responsibilities as a faculty member have involved teaching undergraduate

and graduate courses in computer science and operations research, serving as graduate

advisor for computer science and directing graduate student research projects. She is

the recipient of Teaching Excellence Awards from her college and department; and her

research interests and activities have resulted in numerous papers published in scientific

journals and presented at conferences.

Dr. Price's research projects have addressed various topics in Operations Research. Her

work on heuristic algorithms for mathematical programming problems has been applied

to scheduling and allocation of tasks and resources in distributed computing systems,

novel computer architectures, load balancing in multiprocessor computer systems, flow

control, routing, fault-tolerance in parallel computing systems, and design and analysis of

parallel 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 in

Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida (UCF), Orlando, Florida, in

1999 and 1996 respectively, and his BSc in Industrial Engineering from the University of

Jordan, Amman, Jordan, in 1992. Prior to joining ODU in 2002, he worked at UCF as Post

Doc where he led NASA funded projects on developing discrete-event simulations of the

Space Shuttle ground processes. He was then a visiting assistant professor at the department

of Industrial Engineering & Management Systems at UCF. He then worked as a

research 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 operation

modeling and simulation of future space launch vehicles at NASA Langley Research

Center in Hampton, Virginia. For their work with NASA, he and his colleagues were

awarded the NASA Software Invention Award and the NASA Board Action Invention

Award. In 2008, he received the Fulbright Specialist Program Award to work with the faculty

at the German-Jordanian University in Amman, Jordan.

He was a visiting professor for one year at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial

Engineering at Qatar University, Doha, Qatar, in 2013-2014 academic year. He taught graduate

and undergraduate courses in Operations Research, Engineering Economics, and

Simulation, and collaborated with the faculty on research pertaining to port operation

simulation and optimization.

In 2016, he received ODU's Doctoral Mentoring Award for advising 14 PhD students to

graduation over the past 14 years, and for continuing to work closely and publish with his

students. Most recently, he with a team of professors and PhD students received NATO's

Global Innovation Challenge Award for their work on humanitarian logistics optimization.

Dr. Rabadi's research has been funded by NASA, NATO Allied Transformation

Command, Department of Homeland Security, Army Corps of Engineers, Department of

the 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, Operations

Research, Simulation Modeling and Analysis, Supply Chain Management & Logistics, and

Data Analytics. He has published a book, and over 100 peer reviewed journal and conference

articles and book chapters. He is a co-founder and is currently the chief editor for

the International Journal of Planning and Scheduling.