Applications of Operations Research and Management Science: Case Studies

This book includes case studies that examine the application of operations research to improve or increase efficiency in industry and operational activities. This collection of “living case studies” is all based on the author’s 30-year career of consulting and advisory work. These true-to life industrial applications illustrate the research and development of solutions, as well as potential implementation and integration problems that may occur when adopting these methods into a business. Among the topics covered in the chapters include optimization in circuit board manufacturing, Decision Support System (DSS) for plant loading and dispatch planning, as well as development of important test procedures for tyre and pharma industry with shelf life constraints. In particular, the study on deckle optimization should be of great help to managers in paper industry and consultants for development of deckle optimization software. The application of operations research throughout the industry makes it an ideal guide for industrial executives, professionals and practitioners responsible for quality and productivity improvement.

Dr. Murthy is a senior faculty member at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Hyderabad. He received his degrees, Bachelor of Statistics (Honours), Master of Statistics, PG Diploma and Ph. D. (in Operations Research) from the Indian Statistical Institute. He has been serving Indian industries, covering a wide variety, over past three decades. Besides training industrial personnel on applications of Statistics and Operations Research, he has undertaken a large number of projects and guided a number of project teams. He has special flair for development of decision support systems and contributed significantly to live projects from industry. His works on estimation of power consumption by farmers in the state of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh which included a state wide survey and development of robust estimation methodology and his contributions to surveys on quality of drugs in India speak of his passion for applied works related projects of national interests.

Dr. Murthy believes that keeping in constant touch with academics is essential for successful promotion of the subjects to applications. He has been maintaining a parallel profile in academics. His research interests include mathematical programming, stochastic processes, reliability and multivariate analysis. He has more than 25 research publications in international journals and visited foreign universities in connection with col1aborative research work and presented papers in international conferences. Some of his case studies have appeared as chapters in a book edited by Professor Katta G. Murty recently published by Springer. At the request of organizers, Dr. Murthy organized a session on applications of Operations Research in the international conference Modeling and Optimization: Theory and Applications (MOPTA 2014) at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA.

Dr. Murthy enjoys teaching and training. He has trained hundreds of industrial personnel starting from senior executives to shop floor operators on statistical and operations research methodologies. He has been teaching M. Sc. courses on Statistics and Operations Research at University of Hyderabad as guest faculty. He has developed a number of course modules meant for distance education for the undergraduate programmes offered by the Indira Gandhi National Open University.