Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 60-07, Section: A, page: 2569.

Strategic objectives in modern discrete-part manufacturing are shifting from the previously sought economies of scale to the so called economies of scope, where emphasis is placed on product variety and customization, as well as the increased responsiveness of the production system to widely...

The principal aim of this paper is to measure the amount by which the profit of a multi-input, multi-output firm deviates from maximum short-run profit, and then to decompose this profit gap into components that are of practical use to managers. In particular, our interest is in the measurement...

In seeking to support the longevity of firms in high technology industries, much research effort has been directed at understanding the stages of growth and development of these firms. One industry regarded as vitally important to most national economies is biotechnology. Although our knowledge...

Most current maintenance programs focus on achieving the main goals of maintenance operations: increasing mean time between failures, reducing time to repair and minimizing costs. Some researchers have focused on optimizing these variables. Detailed analyses have been conducted in the fields of...

Logistics managers rely on increasingly sophisticated technologies to track demand and associated inventories, allowing rapid response to meet anticipated demand, avoid shortfalls while minimizing transportation and inventory carrying costs. This ability to respond gives rise to complex decision...

At the heart of any decision problem is some degree of "flexibility" in how to act. Most often, we aim to extract greatest possible value from this inherent flexibility. The three essays compiled here are aligned with this same general aim, but we have an important secondary concern: to...