We have developed a nonlinear, mixed-integer programming model for the railroad blocking problem. The objective of this model is to determine a classification strategy for all the classification yards in a railroad system at one time. The model can be viewed as a multicommodity flow problem with...

The dramatic growth of free agency in Major League Baseball has caused great concern about the competitiveness of some teams, particularly those in smaller markets. The authors use a two-stage data envelopment analysis model as part of a larger analysis to determine the minimum total player...

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) allows us to evaluate the relative efficiency of each of a set of decision-making units (DMUs). However, the methodology does not permit us to identify specific sources of inefficiency because DEA views the DMU as a “black box” that consumes a mix of inputs...

In today's tough economic environment, governments at all levels face significant budget shortfalls and public rail transit systems must compete with other public services for government subsidies. It is critical that public rail transit systems be concerned with their operational performance...

Effective organizations need capabilities relevant to their missions and must manage those capabilities efficiently. We anticipate capability is more important in industries in which labor is highly paid, while efficiency is more important in industries in which labor is inexpensive. We explore...

We propose an efficiency-based mechanism for state funding of public colleges and universities using data envelopment analysis. We describe the philosophy and the mathematics that underlie the approach and apply\break the proposed model to data from 362 U.S. public four-year colleges and...

Conflicts among nations can often be understood as games in which players (nations) possessing strategies (the sets of actions they may take) face alternative consequences (loss or gain of territory or prestige) determined by their choices of action. Amenable to this type of analysis is the...