Healthcare operations, in hospitals and home healthcare settings, are inundated with complex fuzzy features that impose difficulties in the creation of work schedules. This book presents in-depth research on emerging approaches to healthcare staff scheduling. It starts by reviewing the key issues and challenges inherent in staff scheduling, along with the basic concepts of fuzzy set theory. Examining cutting-edge research applications, it details fuzzy optimization algorithms derived from ...

This book presents advances and innovations in grouping genetic algorithms, enriched with new and unique heuristic optimization techniques. These algorithms are specially designed for solving industrial grouping problems where system entities are to be partitioned or clustered into efficient groups according to a set of guiding decision criteria. Examples of such problems are: vehicle routing problems, team formation problems, timetabling problems, assembly line balancing, group maintenanc...

In the 1950s, a planning method was conceived called “Material Requirements Planning (or MRP).” MRP changed the world of manufacturing forever. But times have changed—customer tolerance times are much shorter, product variety and complexity has increased, and supply chains have spread around the world. MRP is dramatically failing in this “New Normal.” Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP) is a practical, proven, and emerging method for supply chain planning and execution tha...

Putting forward a unified presentation of the features and possible applications of probabilistic preferences composition, and serving as a methodology for decisions employing multiple criteria, this book maximizes reader insights into the evaluation in probabilistic terms and the development of composition approaches that do not depend on assigning weights to the criteria.With key applications in important areas of management such as failure modes, effects analysis and productivit...

This new edition provides an up-to-date coverage of important theoretical models in the scheduling literature as well as significant scheduling problems that occur in the real world. It again includes supplementary material in the form of slide-shows from industry and movies that show implementations of scheduling systems.The main structure of the book as per previous edition consists of three parts. The first part focuses on deterministic scheduling and the related combinatorial p...

Maximizing reader insights into project management and handling complexity-driven risks, this book explores propagation effects, non-linear consequences, loops, and the emergence of positive properties that may occur over the course of a project.This book presents an introduction to project management and analysis of traditional project management approaches and their limits regarding complexity. It also includes overviews of recent research works about project complexity modelling...

Fierce competition in today's global market provides a powerful motivation for developing ever more sophisticated logistics systems. This book, written for the logistics manager and researcher, presents a survey of the modern theory and application of logistics. The goal of the book is to present the state of the art in the science of logistics management.This third edition includes new chapters on the subjects of game theory, the power of process flexibility, supply chain competit...

Consolidating existing knowledge in Design Science, this book proposes a new research method to aid the exploration of design and problem solving within business, science and technology. It seeks to overcome a dichotomy that exists in the field between theory and practice to enable researches to find solutions to problems, rather than focusing on the explanation and exploration of the problems themselves.Currently, researches concentrate on to describing, exploring, explaining and ...

Product Lifecycle Management (2nd edition) explains what Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is, and why it's needed. It describes the environment in which products are developed, realised and supported, before looking at the basic components of PLM, such as the product, processes, applications, and people. The final part addresses the implementation of PLM, showing the steps of a project or initiative, and typical activities.This new and expanded edition of Product Lif...

In two volumes, Planning Production and Inventories in the Extended Enterprise: A State of the Art Handbook examines production planning across the extended enterprise against a backdrop of important gaps between theory and practice. The early chapters describe the multifaceted nature of production planning problems and reveal many of the core complexities. The middle chapters describe recent research on theoretical techniques to manage these complexities. Accounts of production planning s...

This second volume moves beyond a general introduction to product lifecycle management (PLM) and its principal elements to provide a more in-depth analysis of the subjects introduced in Volume 1 (21st Century Paradigm for Product Realisation).Providing insights into the emergence of PLM and the opportunities it offers, key concepts such as the PLM Grid and the PLM Paradigm are introduced along with the main components of PLM and the associated characteristics, issues and approaches...

This book is focused on the impact of ocean transport logistics on global supply chains. It is the first book solely dedicated to the topic, linking the interaction of parties along this chain, including shippers, terminal operators and line carriers. While ocean container transport logistics has been greatly studied, there are many important issues that have yet to receive the attention they deserve. The editors and contributing authors of Ocean Container Transport Logistics: Making G...