Operations Research An Introduction

This seventh edition continues to build on the strength of the first six editions, providing balanced coverage of the theory, applications, and computations of operations research. Complex mathematical concepts are effectively explained by means of carefully designed numerical examples, essentially eliminating the need for the usually obscure formal mathematical proofs. The book includes fully analyzed practical situations and each chapter concludes with summary applications borrowed from published case studies. The role of modern computational tools in enhancing the effectiveness of operations research as a decision-making tool receives considerable attention in this new edition. New for the Seventh Edition: Practically every algorithm in the book is now supported and explained by an appropriate software tool, greatly facilitating the process of explaining concepts that otherwise would be difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate. The powerful Windows?-based TORA software offers new and unique tutorial features, ranging from animated graphical LP solution to dynamic construction of CPM time charts and generation of branch-and-bound search trees. For the first time, Excel? templates are designed to solve general problems in dynamic programming, inventory problems, and the analytic hierarchy approach, simply by changing the input data in the template. Excel? Solver is used to solve transportation, network, and linear and nonlinear programming problems. Commercial AMPL? and LINGO? packages are used to show how very large linear and integer programs are solved in practice. Chapters 1 through 14, 17, and 18 have been streamlined to eliminate ambiguity and redundancy in the presentation of the material. New material includes a new introduction to operations research, the generalized simplex method, representation of all network models, including CPM, as linear programs, PERT networks,solution of the traveling salesperson problem, and the golden section method. Numerous new problems have been added in many chapters. Appendix D provides complete solutions to selected chapter problems. Software Support: Easy-to-use menu-driven TORA optimization system. Over 20 general and ready-to-use Excel? spreadsheet templates. Several Excel? Solver templates. Example applications of the commercial packages AMPL? and LINGO'.Taha, Hamdy A. is the author of 'Operations Research An Introduction', published 2002 under ISBN 9780130323743 and ISBN 0130323748.