Praise for the Third Edition: "This is one of the best books available. Its excellent organizational structure allows quick reference to specific models and its clear presentation . . . solidifies the understanding of the concepts being presented."IIE Transactions on Operations EngineeringThoroughly revised and expanded to reflect the latest developments in the field, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, Fourth Edition continues to present the basic statistical principles that are necessary to analyze the probabilistic nature of queues. Rather than presenting a narrow focus on the subject, this update illustrates the wide-reaching, fundamental concepts in queueing theory and its applications to diverse areas such as computer science, engineering, business, and operations research.This update takes a numerical approach to understanding and making probable estimations relating to queues, with a comprehensive outline of simple and more advanced queueing models. Newly featured topics of the Fourth Edition include:Retrial queuesApproximations for queueing networksNumerical inversion of transformsDetermining the appropriate number of servers to balance quality and cost of serviceEach chapter provides a self-contained presentation of key concepts and formulae, allowing readers to work with each section independently, while a summary table at the end of the book outlines the types of queues that have been discussed and their results. In addition, two new appendices have been added, discussing transforms and generating functions as well as the fundamentals of differential and difference equations. New examples are now included along with problems that incorporate QtsPlus software, which is freely available via the book's related Web site.With its accessible style and wealth of real-world examples, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, Fourth Edition is an ideal book for courses on queueing theory at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners who analyze congestion in the fields of telecommunications, transportation, aviation, and management science.

Fundamentals of Queueing Theory

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the reader to the field of closed-loop supply chains with a strong business perspective, i.e., we focus on profitable value recovery from returned products. It recounts the evolution of research in this growing area over the past 15 years, during which it developed from a narrow, technically focused niche area to a fully recognized subfield of supply chain management. We use five phases to paint an encompassing view of this evolutionary process for the reader to understand past achievements and potential future operations research opportunities.

OR FORUM---The Evolution of Closed-Loop Supply Chain Research

Plants, distribution centers, and other facilities generally function for years or decades, during which time the environment in which they operate may change substantially. Costs, demands, travel times, and other inputs to classical facility location models may be highly uncertain. This has made the development of models for facility location under uncertainty a high priority for researchers in both the logistics and stochastic/robust optimization communities. Indeed, a large number of the approaches that have been proposed for optimization under uncertainty have been applied to facility location problems. This paper reviews the literature on stochastic and robust facility location models. Our intent is to illustrate both the rich variety of approaches for optimization under uncertainty that have appeared in the literature and their application to facility location problems. In a few instances for which examples in facility location are not available, we provide examples from the more general logistics l...

Facility Location Under Uncertainty: A Review

In this study, we consider facility location decisions for a humanitarian relief chain responding to quick-onset disasters. In particular, we develop a model that determines the number and locations of distribution centres in a relief network and the amount of relief supplies to be stocked at each distribution centre to meet the needs of people affected by the disasters. Our model, which is a variant of the maximal covering location model, integrates facility location and inventory decisions, considers multiple item types, and captures budgetary constraints and capacity restrictions. We conduct computational experiments to illustrate how the proposed model works on a realistic problem. Results show the effects of pre- and post-disaster relief funding on relief system's performance, specifically on response time and the proportion of demand satisfied. Finally, we discuss the managerial implications of the proposed model.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13675560701561789

Facility location in humanitarian relief

Environmentally conscious manufacturing and product recovery (ECMPRO): A review of the state of the art

We study several important aspects of using environmental taxes to motivate the choice of innovative and �green" emissions-reducing technologies as well as the role of fixed cost subsidies and consumer rebates in this process. In our model, a profit-maximizing monopolistic firm facing price-dependent demand selects emissions control technology, production quantity, and price in response to the tax, subsidy, and rebate levels set by the regulator. The available technologies vary in environmental efficiency as well as in the fixed and variable costs. Both the optimal policy for the firm and the social-welfare maximizing policy for the regulator are analyzed. We find that the firm's reaction to an increase in taxes may be non-monotone: while an initial increase in taxes may motivate a switch to a greener technology, further tax increases may motivate a reverse switch. For the regulator, we compare the social welfare achievable in the centralized system (which serves as an upper bound) to the highest level achievable under different classes of environmental policies. If the regulator is limited to a tax-only policy, then when the regulator is moderately concerned with environmental impacts, the tax level that maximizes social welfare simultaneously motivates the choice of clean technology and closes the gap to the upper bound; however, both low and high levels of societal environmental concerns may lead to the choice of dirty technology and significant welfare losses as compared to the centralized case. Supplementing the environmental taxation with fixed cost subsidies and consumer rebates can eliminate this effect, expanding the range of parameters over which the green technology is chosen and often closing the welfare gap to the centralized solution.

/pdf/environmental-taxes-and-the-choice-of-green-technology-325w9qsew6.pdf

Environmental Taxes and the Choice of Green Technology

The generalized maximal covering location problem

In this paper we analyze a facility location model where facilities may be subject to disruptions, causing customers to seek service from the operating facilities. We generalize the classical p-Median problem on a network to explicitly include the failure probabilities, and analyze structural and algorithmic aspects of the resulting model. The optimal location patterns are seen to be strongly dependent on the probability of facility failure - with facilities becoming more centralized, or even co-located, as the failure probability grows. Several exact and heuristic solution approaches are developed. Extensive numerical computations are performed

Facility Reliability Issues in Network p-Median Problems: Strategic Centralization and Co-location Effects

In this paper, we analyze a facility location model where facilities may be subject to disruptions, causing customers to seek service from the operating facilities. We generalize the classical p-median problem on a network to explicitly include the failure probabilities, and analyze structural and algorithmic aspects of the resulting model. The optimal location patterns are seen to be strongly dependent on the probability of facility failure, with facilities becoming more centralized, or even co-located, as the failure probability grows. Several exact and heuristic solution approaches are developed. Results of numerical experiments are reported.

Dmitry Krass

Papers

Environmental Taxes and the Choice of Green Technology

The generalized maximal covering location problem

Facility Reliability Issues in Network p-Median Problems: Strategic Centralization and Co-location Effects

Facility Reliability Issues in Network p-Median Problems: Strategic Centralization and Co-Location Effects

Competitive facility location and design problem