Publisher's Synopsis
Although linear optimization of the operational systems is discussed in this book at large, it is intended to fill a gap in the literature of coupled operational systems. That is of the organizations which have a complex of operational systems, where the organizational resources are distributed among operational systems in two ways; one way is to allocate the resource to a particular system, separately, and the other way is to assign the resource to all systems, collectively. The latter is called 'coupling resource' as it couples the operational systems. One such complex exists when the operational systems have a time-sensitive operational cycle; where time varies considerably from one cycle to another. Another such complex exists when the operational systems have the chance to choose between different mixes of factors of production. A third one exists when the operational systems have multi-objective to be accomplished. Stochastic formulation of these systems is developed so that they become more realistic.Several examples are given and several applications in liner and tramp shipping are brought to demonstrate the viability of the above-mentioned operational systems. Only the linear optimization of the operational systems is discussed in this book. The book spares no effort to build precise mathematical models to describe complexes of operational systems worth billions of dollars. If models are NP-hard, the book adopts the state-of-the-art methodologies to solve these models.
