Operations Research: A Model-Based Approach (Springer Texts in Business and Economics)

This is the third edition of a textbook that has been used in a number of undergraduate courses and covers the standard models and techniques used in decision-making in organizations. The main emphasis of the book is on modelling business-related scenarios and the generation of decision alternatives. Fully solved examples from many areas are used to illustrate the main concepts without getting bogged down in technical details. The book presents an approach to operations research that is heavily based on modelling and makes extensive use of sensitivity analyses. It is the result of the authors’ many years of combined teaching experience. The third edition includes new topics such as nonlinear programming and reliability theory, as well as additional material on multi-attribute decision-making. Each chapter includes a number of fully solved problems that allow students to practice or self-study. Additional problems are available on the book’s accompanying website. The book covers the standard models and techniques used in decision making in organizations. The main emphasis of the book is on modeling business-related scenarios and the generation of decision alternatives. Fully solved examples from many areas are used to illustrate the main concepts without getting bogged down in technical details. The book presents an approach to operations research that is heavily based on modeling and makes extensive use of sensitivity analyses. It is a result of many years of combined teaching experience of the authors. The second edition adds new material on multicriteria optimization, postman problems, Lagrangean relaxation, cutting planes, machine scheduling, and Markov chains. Support material is found on a free website and includes some algorithms, additional fully solved problems and slides for instructors.