Introduction to Logistics Systems Planning and Control

Logistics is defined as a business planning framework for the management of material, service, information and capital flows. Logistic systems have received considerable attention in the last 10 years, as they constitute one of the cornerstones in the design and control of production systems and the modeling of supply chains. This renewed interest is partly due to the recognition that well-known planning and control systems such as ‘Manufacturing Resources Planning’ and ‘Just in Time’ systems fail to establish a sound integration of lead time management, capacity planning and quality considerations.

This book uniquely:

• Presents a balanced treatment of quantitative methods for logistics systems planning, organization and control.
• Each topic is illustrated with real examples.
• Each chapter features an annotated bibliography of key references.
• Features a number of case studies that show how the methods can be applied to complex logistics problems.
• Assumes only a basic knowledge of operations research.
• Supported by a Website (http://wileylogisticsbook.dii.unile.it) featuring exercises and teaching material.
  

A unique, leading edge title for researchers, practitioners, and students of logistics and supply chain management, in both academia; engineering, computer science, management science, undergraduate, graduate students and industry professionals.

Gianpaolo Ghiani is Associate Professor of Operations Research at the University of Lecce, Italy. His main research interests lie in the field of combinatorial optimization, particularly in vehicle routing, location and layout problems. He has published in a variety of journals, including Mathematical Programming, Operations Research Letters, Networks Transportation Science, Optimization Methods and Software, Computers and Operations Research, International Transactions in Operational research, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Parallel Computing and Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing Systems. His doctoral thesis was awarded the Transportation Science Dissertation Award from INFORMS in 1998. He is an editorial board member of Computers & Operations Research.

Gilbert Laporte obtained his PhD in Operations Research at the London School of Economics in 1975. He is Professor of Operations Research at HEC Montréal, Director of the Canada Research Chair in Distribution Management, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta. He is also a member of GERAD, of the Centre for Research on Transportation (serving as director from 1987 to 1991), and Fellow of the Center for Management of Operations and Logistics, University of Texas at Austin. He has authored or coauthored several books, as well as more then 225 scientific articles in combinatorial optimization, mostly in the areas of vehicle routing, location, districting and timetabling. He is the current editor of Computers and Operations Research and served as editor of Transportation Science from 1995 to 2002. He has received many scientific awards including the Pergamon Prize (United Kingdom), the Merit Award of the Canadian Operational Research Society, the CORS Practice Prize on two occasions, the Jacques-Rousseau Prize for Interdisciplinary, as well as the President's medal of the Operational Research Society (United Kingdom). In 1998 he became a member of the Royal Society of Canada.

Roberto Musmanno is Professor of Operations Research at the University of Calabria, Italy. His major research interests lie in logistics, network optimization and parallel computing. He has published n a variety of journals, including Operations Research, Transportation Science, Computational Optimization and Applications, Optimization Methods & Software, Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Optimization and Parallel Computing. He is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Center of Excellence of High Performance Computing, and an editorial board member of Computers & Operations Research.