Operations Research Proceedings 1988

This volume contains a selection of papers referring to lectures presented at the symposium "Operations Research 2003" (OR03) held at the Ruprecht Karls-Universitiit Heidelberg, September 3 - 5, 2003. This international con ference took place under the auspices of the German Operations Research So ciety (GOR) and of Dr. Erwin Teufel, prime minister of Baden-Wurttemberg. The symposium had about 500 participants from countries all over the world. It attracted academians and practitioners working in various field of Opera tions Research and provided them with the most recent advances in Opera tions Research and related areas in Economics, Mathematics, and Computer Science. The program consisted of 4 plenary and 13 semi-plenary talks and more than 300 contributed papers selected by the program committee to be presented in 17 sections. Due to a limited number of pages available for the proceedings volume, the length of each article as well as the total number of accepted contributions had to be restricted. Submitted manuscripts have therefore been reviewed and 62 of them have been selected for publication. This refereeing procedure has been strongly supported by the section chairmen and we would like to express our gratitude to them. Finally, we also would like to thank Dr. Werner Muller from Springer-Verlag for his support in publishing this proceedings volume.

The volume contains a selection of manuscripts of lectures presented at the International Symposi um on Operations Research (SOR 96). The Symposium took place at the Technical University of Braunschweig, September 3-6, 1996. SOR 96 was organized under the auspices of the two German societies of Operations Research, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Operations Research (DGOR) and Gesellschaft fur Mathematik, Okonomie and Operations Research (GMOOR) in cooperation with the Working Group Discrete Optimization of the IFIP (WG7.4). Since 1995, DGOR and GMOORjointly prepare the Symposium as a common annual conference. In particular, the annual general meetings of the DGOR, the GMOOR and the WG7.4 took place during the conference. The Symposi~m had 527 participants from 32 countries around the world, including 92 partici pants from Eastern Europe. The Symposium obviously attracts an international audience of workers fully covering the broad spectrum of Operations Research and related areas in economics, mathema tics and computer science. The importance of a highly interdisciplinary field as Operations Research is increasing owing to the growth in applications in related disciplines. Technological advances in computer science and algorithmic mathematics are crucial for attacking the great challenges waiting in the areas of applications of Operations Research effectively. As a participant of SOR 96 one could well observe the current pace of achievements. Many of these results are in these proceedings. The program consisted of two plenary, 17 semiplenary, and 335 contributed lectures in 18 sections.

Since its founding as a regional network represented by eight member countries, the growth and development of APORS (the Association of Asian-Pacific Operational Research Societies) has been as rapid as the speed of socio-economic transformation occurring in this same, very dynamic region. With a view to developing operations research in this area, APORS '88 (the first conference organized by the APORS) provided a valuable opportunity for participants to share experiences and expertise in operations research and management science. The contributions included in this work are edited versions of a selection of those papers presented at APORS '88.

Cost Analysis is an emerging sub-discipline of Economics and Operations Research. This is the first collection of readings that spans the discipline. The contributions are both theoretical and applications oriented. This book is directed to researchers in Economics, Operations Research, Industrial Engineering, and Managerial Accounting. In particular, the book provides an overview of the types of problems that are of interest to cost researchers. These papers are a subset of the papers that were presented at the 1989 Joint National Meeting of the Institute of Cost Analysis and the National Estimating Society in Washington, D.C.

An insight into the latest results from the world of operations research - a wide-ranging field, as is shown by the book's 24 sections, corresponding to the conference program itself. Although problems of a primarily methodological nature are discussed, the emphasis is placed firmly on practical subjects, such as reports from the fields of healthcare, environmental protection, logistics and traffic engineering. This selection also clearly illustrates the extent to which OR is spreading into and already interwoven in other scientific disciplines.

The focus of the conference was the service sector. This sector is of great importance to the Western world and is the subject of increasing management attention. The service sector now represents a significant part of Western economies. Furthermore, in the UK, the growth in the output of the service sector is about twice that of the rest of the economy and service exports increasingly compensate for its declining trade in manufactured goods. The conference brought together people from many different disciplines and functional specialisms to the service operation - the part of the organisation where the services are created and provided. The disciplines and functions represented included operations management, marketing, organisational behaviour, economics, operational research, decision sciences, accounting, engineering and manufacturing.