Books in the International Series in Operations Research & Management Science series

This handbook includes three parts, corresponding to the following three domains of OR/MS research related to sustainability: (i) Systems Design, Innovation, and Technology, (ii) Manufacturing, Logistics, and Transportation, and (iii) Sustainable Natural Resource Management.

This book presents healthcare logistics solutions that have been successfully implemented at a variety of healthcare facilities.

Management of supply chains has been evolving rapidly over the last few years due to the inception of Industry 4.0, where businesses adopt automation technologies and data exchanges leading to dynamic and interconnected supply chain systems. Emphasizing on analytical approaches such as predictive and prescriptive modeling, this book presents state-of-the-art original research work dealing with advanced analytical models for the design, planning, and operation of the supply chain to provide faster and smarter decisions in the era of digitization.In particular, the book integrates machine learning and operations research models for faster and smarter decisions, presents prescriptive analytics models for strategic, tactical, and operational decision making in the supply chain, and addresses recent challenges such as sustainability in the supply chain, supply chain visibility, and supply chain digitalization. Key concepts are illustrated using real-life case studies, making the book a valuable reference for researchers, technical professionals, and students.

This book explains the theoretical structure of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and focuses on the application of PSO to portfolio optimization problems. The general goal of portfolio optimization is to find a solution that provides the highest expected return at each level of portfolio risk. According to H. Markowitz¿s portfolio selection theory, as new assets are added to an investment portfolio, the total risk of the portfoliös decreases depending on the correlations of asset returns, while the expected return on the portfolio represents the weighted average of the expected returns for each asset.The book explains PSO in detail and demonstrates how to implement Markowitz¿s portfolio optimization approach using PSO. In addition, it expands on the Markowitz model and seeks to improve the solution-finding process with the aid of various algorithms. In short, the book provides researchers, teachers, engineers, managers and practitioners with many tools they need to apply the PSO technique to portfolio optimization.

This book provides relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings of Operations Research/Management Science applied to Internet of Things. This book identifies and describes ways in which OR and MS have been applied and influenced the development of IoT. Examples are from smart industry; city; transportation; home and smart devices. It discusses future applications, trends, and potential benefits of this new discipline.It is written for professionals who want to improve their understanding of the strategic role of IoT at various levels of the organization, that is, IoT at the global economy level, at networks and organizations level, at teams and work groups, at information systems and, finally, IoT at the level of individuals, as players in the networked environments.

This handbook covers various areas of Higher Education (HE) in which operations research/management science (OR/MS) techniques are used. Key examples include: international comparisons, university rankings, and rating academic efficiency with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA); academic information systems;

Drawing on a case study from the oil and gas sector, it offers a methodology and practical solutions to help maintenance practitioners select and formulate an asset maintenance strategy, and to establish best maintenance practices at an organizational level using the frameworks developed here.

This book discusses machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for agricultural economics. It is written with a view towards bringing the benefits of advanced analytics and prognostics capabilities to small scale farmers worldwide. This volume provides data science and software engineering teams with the skills and tools to fully utilize economic models to develop the software capabilities necessary for creating lifesaving applications.The book introduces essential agricultural economic concepts from the perspective of full-scale software development with the emphasis on creating niche blue ocean products. Chapters detail several agricultural economic and AI reference architectures with a focus on data integration, algorithm development, regression, prognostics model development and mathematical optimization.Upgrading traditional AI software development paradigms to function in dynamic agricultural and economic markets, this volume will be of great use to researchers and students in agricultural economics, data science, engineering, and machine learning as well as engineers and industry professionals in the public and private sectors.

This book explores the novel uses and potentials of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) under big data. Considering the vast literature on DEA, one could say that DEA has been and continues to be, a widely used technique both in performance and productivity measurement, having covered a plethora of challenges and debates within the modelling framework.

This book introduces readers to the key provisions of the URRAN-based technical asset management system - a methodology for managing resources and risks by analyzing and ensuring the required levels of reliability and safety in Russia's railway transport facilities.

The book is addressed to researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in Operations Research, Operations Management, computer science and mathematics, who are developing and using mathematical approaches to applications in manufacturing, services and distributed wireless network scheduling.

Modem information technology has created new possibilities for more sophisticated and efficient control of supply chains. Most organizations can reduce their material flow costs substantially. Inventory control techniques are very important components in this development process. A thorough understanding of relevant inventory models is a prerequisite for successful implementation. I hope that this book will be a useful tool in acquiring such an understanding. Nearly ten years ago I wrote a Swedish book on inventory control. This previous book has been used in courses in production and inventory control at several Swed- ish engineering schools and has also been appreciated by many practitioners in the field. Positive reactions from many readers have occasionally made me contemplate writing a new book in English on the same subject. Encouraging support of this idea from the Kluwer Editors Fred Hillier and Gary Folven finally convinced me to go ahead with the project. The result is this new book, which in many ways differs from its Swedish prede- cessor. Some differences are due to recent developments in inventory control. Fur- thermore, this new book is in a sense more theoretical. In particular, it is to a larger extent focused on creating a good basic understanding of different possible ap- proaches when analyzing inventory models.

This book deals with stochastic combinatorial optimization problems in supply chain disruption management, with a particular focus on management of disrupted flows in customer-driven supply chains.

It helps to structure models, to easily model complex constraints, to have a basic modeling guide for any multi-criteria system and to better understand models already existing in the literature.The book is structured in the same order as components of the methodology, established in a multi-criteria optimization problem.

This book examines cross-chain control centers (4C), an ambitious concept in supply chain management and logistics that is intended to foster collaboration between different supply chains to increase efficiency.