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The ORMM and OM/IE sites contain
a variety of resources that can be used for organized classes
or
self instruction. This section provides an organization of
the materials into subsets that lead to specific classes. The
classes are not meant to be entirely
web. Rather we provide links to site pages
and other resources that can be used by professors to construct
classes.
We also include syllabi of classes that have been taught by
the author.
Some of the classes use references to the textbook Operations
Research Models and Methods and supplementary material included
on the the CD that comes with the text. It
is difficult to provide all the background for the topics entirely
on the
web,
so we
generally
assume that a reasonably complete textbook is available. Some
of the syllabi refer to workbooks. The workbooks were compiled
by the author to support in-class activities. They repeat
the text and pictures on Power Point presentations, allow
space
for
student notes, give in-class exercises, provide additional student
problems and other supplementary materials. Professors interested
in using
these
workbooks for
organized classes should contact the author.
The pages of this section contain many links to materials
stored at this site. Each link has a graphic that describes its
purpose or format. The graphics are identified in the table below.
The ORMM Textbook and text supplements must be purchased separately.
The colored acorns (except green) link to pages on the site.
The PowerPoint presentation, PDF document, Flash Document,
Excel add-in and Excel data file links download
files to your computer. The required players or programs
must be available to use the files. It may be possible to setup
your browser to automatically run the files after downloading.
Note that Excel add-in files must installed manually.
Topic Areas
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Operations
Research
Models
Most operations research studies involve
the construction of a mathematical model. The model is
a collection of logical and mathematical relationships
that represents aspects of the situation under study.
Models describe important relationships between variables,
include an objective function with which alternative
solutions are evaluated, and constraints that restrict
solutions to feasible values. For this topic we investigate
the range of models that are available to the OR analyst.
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Integer
Programming
Integer programming is concerned with optimization problems in
which some of the variables are required to take on discrete
values.
Rather than allow a variable to assume all real values in a given
range, only predetermined discrete values within the range are
permitted. In most cases, these values are the integers, giving
rise to the name of this class of models. This topic links to
resources that describe models, methods, computational methods
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Network
Flow Programming
Situations arising from the fields of transportation, water resources,
manufacturing and many others give rise to network flow models.
A flow network is a collection of nodes and arcs. Each arc passes
from one node to another and carries a commodity called flow.
A requirement is that flow be conserved at each node. The optimization
problem is to find the flow in each arc that minimizes the total
cost of the flow in the network. The topic contains articles
on modeling, finding solutions, and algorithms that solve specific
network optimization problems. |
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Production
Systems
The web site holds a variety of material for the modeling and analysis of
production systems. Here we include a set of PowerPoint presentations for
a course. The material supports the Process Flow add-in. |
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