The treatment and the solution of health economic problems by using management concepts is a permanent challenge; the question of control ling the costs or the efficiency of the supply of medical services is concerned. The articles in this book hope to make a concrete contri bution to this subject by reporting on the latest research the authors have made in this area. The medical services involved can either be part of the general provi sion of medical care and treatment to the population or can be provided by hospitals which are complex systems of public health care. The divi sion of the contents of this book reflects this distinction. The four articles in Part A are concerned with problems of general health care. Part B is dedicated to particular problems relating to hospital planning and contains five articles. In Part A the first article by Heidenberger deals with 'Optimal Resource Allocation in Horizontally and Vertically Disaggregated Health Programs' Using corresponding model formulations and linear programming the pro blem is solved of how a fixed budget should be distributed among the measures of a social health program so that the control of an illness is as effective as possible. In the case in question the illness to be controlled is high blood pressure. The possibilities for using this type of approach in health programs to combat other illnesses are ob vious."

The thirteen essays of this book deal with various aspects of production manage ment which have shown a growing importance in research, teaching and practice within the last years and are partly neglected in the literature. The contents range from theoretical issues to case studies. Significant relations among different essays (chapters) give rise to group them into four major parts dealing with separate themes of production management: - fundamental organizational aspects of the production process, - general problems and modern concepts of materials management, - joint production with surplus, waste and hazardous byproducts, - production aspects of cutting stock and trim loss problems. Moreover, there is a strong material connection between the contributions to this volume because they all are based on a common conceptual framework emphasizing the production theoretic foundation. The collection of papers in this book is also designed to provide a fairly comprehensive picture of scientific work in the field of production management done during the last years at the Institute of Production Economics of the Fern universiUit in Hagen, partly in cooperation with other scientists. Since all but two articles have not been published in English before, the reader gets quite a new view on the results of this recent research."

This proceedings volume contains selected and refereed contributions that were presented at the conference on "Recent Developments and New Perspectives of Operations Research in the Area of Production Planning and Control" in Hagen/Germany, 25. - 26. June 1992. This conference was organized with the cooperation of the FernuniversiHit Hagen and was jointly hosted by the "Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Operations Research (DGOR)" and the "Manufacturing Special Interest Group of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA-SIGMA)." For the organization of the conference we received generous financial support from the sponsors listed at the end of this volume. We wish to express our appreciation to all supporters for their contributions. This conference was the successor of the JOInt ORSA/DGOR-conference in Gaithersburg/Maryland, USA, on the 30. and 31. July 1991. Both OR-societies committed themselves in 1989 to host joint conferences on special topics of interest from the field of operations research. This goal has been successfully realized in the area of production management; and it should be an incentive to conduct similar joint conferences on other topics of operations research in the years to come. The 36 contributions in this proceedings volume deal with general and special problems in production planning as well as approaches and algorithms for their solution. They cover a wide range of operations research within product management and will therefore address a wide circle of interested readers among OR-scientists and professionals alike.

Production theory and the theory of cost both belong to the central areas of business administration, for all considerations concerning the economic organization of industrial manufacturing processes start from these. Two developments in the past 30 years have had a considerable influence on the structure and the concentration on points of emphasis in this book. I am referring to findings from KOOPMANS' activity analysis and to the formulation by GUTENBERG of a production function concept that focuses on industrial production processes. Activity analysis has made it possible to develop, from a uniform approach, different types of production functions which describe the concrete principles of production in the productive sector of a business enterprise; this has created a common basis for all production concepts in business administration. The Gutenberg Production Function with its different kinds of adjustment to a changing output has opened up a flexibility to theoretical and practical considerations that gave rise to a large number of additional studies in this area. Considerations in cost theory were in particular need of considerable extensions in the direction of cost minimal combined adjustment processes. By means of the organization of its contents, this book will take both approaches into due account. In that way, it is vastly different from other books dealing with the same subject. As a matter of course, traditional analytical methods and ways of thinking also constitute a large part of the book.

Both the 'First International Summer School on Multiple Criteria Decision Making Methods, Applications and Software' and the present volume of readings could only be realised with assistance and support from many sides. We would like to express our gratitude to all those who have contributed to making a success of the first of a hopefully long series of summer schools in this field and to all those who have contribut. ed to the present volume. First of all we are grateful for the financial means supplied by a long list of sponsors, the most important of which are mentioned on the copyright page. Next, we are grateful to the members of the organising committee, Anna Ostanello and Giovanni Zambruno. Since this is the first of what will become a series of summer schools, the chairman of the organising committee, Benedetto Matarazzo, will start this volume with a brief account of the school held in Acireale. The programme committee consisted of Jean Fichefet, Anna Ostanello, Bernard Roy, Jaap Spronk (chairman) and Stanley Zionts. Their valuable contribu tion is gratefully acknowledged, as is the contribution of all the lecturers at the school. Of course, a school is not only made by its teachers, but just as much by its students. The primary aim of a school is to teach and to stimulate the students."

Basically five problems areas are addressed by operations research specialists in the manufacturing domain: theore- tical and practical aspectsin production planning, facility layout, inventory control, tool management and scheduling. Some of these problems can be solved off-line, while others must be treated as real-time problems impacted by the changing state of the system. Additionally, all of these problems have to be dealt with in an integrated systems framework. Several new topics have recently appeared in the scientific literature which now attract the interest of operations researchers. These include distributed real-time scheduling, hierarchical and heterarchical control systems, integrated algorithms for design, process planning, and equipment level programming, material handling in a finite capacity resource environment, and designing and implementing distributed data management systems. The contributions of these proceedings represent new andunique theoretical developments and applications related to these new topics. They deal with modelling production structures and applying expert systems or neural networks to production systems. Mathematical programming, control theory, simulation, genetic algorithms, tabu search, and simulated annealing are applied as solutiton techniques.

Das vorliegende Buch behandelt allgemeine Ansatze und spezielle Methoden des Operations Research fur volks- und betriebswirtschaftliche Anwendungen. Beitrage von uber 30 Forschern informieren den Leser uber den Stand und neuere Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet der quantitativen Wirtschaftsforschung. Es ergibt sich ein aktuelles Bild des Operations Research, wie es sich derzeit an in- und auslandischen Universitaten prasentiert. Neue Ergebnisse und Methoden betreffen u.a. neue Konzepte der Produktionsplanung, spezielle Ansatze der Wissensverarbeitung, die Problemlosung mit informierten Suchstrategien und die Modellierung von Ungewissheit.

Modern production concepts can be considered as an essential field of economics nowadays. They help to give valuable insights and thus provide important competitive advantages. There is a broad variety of new approaches to Production Planning and Control (PPC), Just-in-Time (JIT), Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS), Flexible Automation (FA), Automated Guided Vehicle Systems (AGVS), Total Quality Control (TQC), and Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), all of which are indispensable cornerstones in this context. This book presents in a condensed and easy-to-comprehend form the different contributions of a group of internationally recommended scientists. The varied approaches to modern production concepts are not only based on theoretical foundations but also go one step further in that they present the implementation of these concepts and methods in detail. This close link with practical aspects will help to illuminate the theoretical material for researchers and students in universities. The book will be of major importance for practitioners involved in solving everyday industrial problems. The interdisciplinary nature of these contributions will help to create a new and valuable perspective on the field of production concepts.

The authors analyse the New Economy from a scientific point of view. The success and the failure of enterprises of the new economy form a challenge to the modern business management and to the theory of the firm. This conference transcript answers the question in which way well-established concepts of the theory of the firm should be modified or new approaches should be created, in order to run enterprises of the new economy successfully. The discussion includes various fields of the theory of the firm and is therefore divided into the six essential disciplines of economic research, which are Production and Procurement, Finance, Marketing, Accounting, Human Resource Management and Economic Organization and Corporate Governance. The international orientation of the book addresses the world-wide scientific community.

The authors analyse the New Economy from a scientific point of view. The success and the failure of enterprises of the new economy form a challenge to the modern business management and to the theory of the firm. This conference transcript answers the question in which way well-established concepts of the theory of the firm should be modified or new approaches should be created, in order to run enterprises of the new economy successfully. The discussion includes various fields of the theory of the firm and is therefore divided into the six essential disciplines of economic research, which are Production and Procurement, Finance, Marketing, Accounting, Human Resource Management and Economic Organization and Corporate Governance. The international orientation of the book addresses the world-wide scientific community.  

The organizers of the 12th International Conference on Multiple Cri teria Decision Making (MCDM) held June 19-23, 1995 in Hagen received the second time the opportunity to prepare an international conference on MCDM in Germany; the first opportunity has been the 3rd International Conference on MCDM in Konigswinter, 1979. Quite a time ellapsed since then and therefore it might be interesting to compare some indicators of the development of the International Society on MCDM, which has been founded in Konigswinter. Stanley Zionts has been elected first president and all 44 participants of that Conference became founding members. Today our Society has over 1200 members and its own Journal (MCDM World Scan). In Hagen, 1996, we had 152 participants from 34 countries. It is interesting to mention that also other Groups established their organi zation, like the European Working Group on Multiple Criteria Decision Aid, the German Working Group on Decision Theory and Applications, the Multi Objective Programming and Goal Programming Group, ESIGMA, and some others. It is also interesting to note that the intersection of members of all these Groups and Societies is not empty and there is quite a cooperation among them."

These Proceedings report the scientific results of an International Workshop on Large-Scale Modelling and Interactive Decision Analysis organized Jointly by the System and Decision Sciences Program of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA, located in Laxenburg, Austria), and the Institute for Informatics of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (located in Berlin, GDR). The Workshop was held at a historically well-known place - the Wartburg Castl- near Eisenach (GDR). (Here Martin Luther translated the Bible into German.) More than fifty scientists representing thirteen countries participated. This Workshop is one of a series of meetings organizE d by or In collaboration with IIASA about which two of the Lecture Notes In Economics and Mathematical Systems have already reported (Voi. 229 and Vol. 246). This time the aim of the meeting was to discuss methodological and practical problems associated with the modelling of large-scale systems and new approaches In interactive decision analysis based on advanced information processing systems.

He consider a cone dominance problem: given a "preference" cone lP and a set n X ~ R of available, or feasible, alternatives, the problem is to identify the non dominated elements of X. The nonzero elements of lP are assumed to model the do- nance structure of the problem so that y s X dominates x s X if Y = x + P for some nonzero p S lP. Consequently, x S X is nondominated if, and only if, ({x} + lP) n X = {x} (1.1) He will also refer to nondominated points as efficient points (in X with respect to lP) and we will let EF(XJP) denote the set of such efficient points. This cone dominance problem draws its roots from two separate, but related, ori gins. The first of these is multi-attribute decision making in which the elements of the set X are endowed with various attributes, each to be maximized or minimized.

Die 10. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft fOr Operations Research fand vom 30. September bis 2. Oktober 1981 an der Universitat GOttingen statt. Die Tagung bot einen Oberblick Ober neueste Ergebnisse der Forschung und der Anwendung des Operations Research; fOr die etwa 400 Teilnehmer war sie wieder ein bewahrtes Fo- rum zum Austausch von Erfahrungen sowohl zwischen Experten als auch zwischen den Hochschulen und der Praxis. Das wissenschaftliche Programm, bestehend aus 122 Vortragen, ist in 22 Sek- tionen eingeteilt, die jeweils bestimmten mathematischen Modellen und Methoden oder einem bestimmten Anwendungsgebiet gewidmet sind; eine Sektion befaBt sich mit der Modellstrukturierung. Viele Sektionen werden durch ein Obersichtsreferat eingeleitel. Die Gestaltung des Programms ist zu einem groBen Teil das Verdienst der einzelnen Sektionsleiter. Ihnen gebOhrt dafOr herzlicher Dank. Wahrend bei dieser wie bei frOheren Jahrestagungen die Teilnehmer etwa in glei- cher Anzahl von Hochschulen wie aus der Praxis kommen, werden die Vortrage doch zu fast drei Vierteln von HochschulangehOrigen gehalten. Zwei neu in das Programm aufgenommene Sektionen, ,,Anwendungsberichte aus der Praxis im Offentlichen Be- reich" und ,,Anwendungsberichte aus der industriellen Praxis", tragen dem Rech- nung. Hier wird von den Anwendern selbst oder mit ihrer Beteiligung der erfolgreiche Einsatz von OR-Methoden geschildert. Diese Beitrage gehen Ober die haufig anzu- treffende Darstellung eines nur anwendbaren Modells hinaus.

Die Zeitschrift fur Betriebswirtschaft wird ab dem Jahre 2013 als International Journal unter dem Titel Journal of Business Economics mit dem Untertitel Zeitschrift fur Betriebswirtschaft erscheinen, und ihre Beitrage werden nur noch in englischer Sprache abgedruckt. Der bevorstehende Neubeginn ist Anlass, in diesem Buch Nachdrucke von 12 Artikeln zusammenzutragen, die in den letzten drei Jahren in der Zeitschrift fur Betriebswirtschaft mit besonderer Betonung des Anwendungsbezugs veroffentlicht worden sind.

Im vorliegenden Sammelband wird deutlich, wie stark in der Zeitschrift fur Betriebswirtschaft die Anwendungen betriebswirtschaftlicher Forschung in der Praxis vertreten waren, da stets der Anwendungsbezug ihrer entscheidungsorientierten Methodik im Blickpunkt stand. Ausserdem zeigt die Auswahl, dass die Zeitschrift fur Betriebswirtschaft immer fur alle Teilgebiete der Betriebswirtschaftslehre offen war und sich somit durchweg dem Ansatz einer Allgemeinen Betriebswirtschaftslehre verpflichtet fuhlte. Die Beitrage befassen sich mit anwendungsorientierten Aspekten zur Unternehmensfuhrung, Personalwirtschaft, Finanzierung, Wirtschaftsprufung, Steuerlehre und Wirtschaftsinformatik sowie zum Marketing. "

Dieses Buch befasst sich mit den Grundlagen, Methoden und neueren Entwicklungen von Produktionsplanungs- und steuerungssystemen (PPS-Systeme) sowie integrierten betrieblichen Softwareloesungen und enthalt eine aufwendige PPS-Marktstudie, die 210 Softwaresysteme anhand von uber 500 Kriterien eingehend untersucht. Neben den Methoden und Konzepten der Produktionsplanung und -steuerung werden auch Fragen der Rechnersystem-Anforderungen, der Datenverwaltung, der Benutzerfuhrung, des Einkaufs, des Vertriebs, der Lagerverwaltung, der Betriebsdatenerfassung, der Kostenrechnung und des Controlling sowie weiterer Bereiche berucksichtigt, die mit der PPS-Problematik in einem unmittelbaren Zusammenhang zu sehen sind, wenn man eine computerintegrierte Fertigung bzw. eine integrierte Softwareloesung verwirklichen moechte.

Dieses Special Issue wurdigt die erfolgreiche Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Zeitschrift. Es beinhaltet den jeweils ersten Beitrag der Hochschullehrer in der ZfB, die ehemals als schriftleitende Herausgeber tatig waren, und zeigt damalige wichtige Themen aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht.

Dieses Special Issue beinhaltet eine kritische Diskussion der Anwendung und Eignung von Mixed Methods in der Managementforschung. Die Beitrage beleuchten das Thema aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven.

Heike Raubenheimer untersucht wie ein Kostenmanagement das Outsourcing von Logistikleistungen unterstutzen kann, um positive Kostenwirkungen zu realisieren. Sie entwickelt mehrere Verfahren, die eine Entscheidung uber das Outsourcing und die Gestaltung der Logistik-Outsourcing-Beziehung unterstutzen."

Supply Chain Management (SCM) dient der Optimierung unternehmensubergreifender Material- und Warenflusse - vom Lieferanten bis zum Endkunden. Das Buch bietet einen breiten Uberblick uber Problemstellungen und Losungsmoglichkeiten und den sich daraus ergebenden Handlungsfeldern: von strategischen Uberlegungen zur Geschaftsoptimierung durch SCM uber die Planung mit Advanced Planning Systems (APS) bis hin zu modernen Ansatzen des Supply Chain Controlling, zu denen Instrumente des Kostenmanagements sowie Kennzahlensysteme zahlen."

Das Lehrbuch bietet einen fundierten Gesamtuberblick uber den traditionellen und neueren Lehrstoff der Kostenrechnung und des Kostenmanagements. Behandelt werden ferner Systeme der Istkostenrechnung, Plankostenrechnung und Prozesskostenrechnung. Abbildungen und Tabellen sowie Ubungsaufgaben mit Losungen erleichtern das Lernen und ermoglichen eine Erfolgskontrolle. Fur die 3. Auflage wurden einige formale und inhaltliche Anderungen und Aktualisierungen eingearbeitet und die Darstellung insbesondere im Kapitel zum Target Costing erweitert."

Dieses Special Issue zeigt fur Anbieter und Nutzer neue Geschaftsmodelle und Einsatzmoglichkeiten sowie Methoden zur Implementierung und Optimierung von E-Learning, die aus betriebswirtschaftlicher, technischer und padagogischer Sicht effizient und effektiv sind.

Dieses Special Issue stellt quantitative Modelle zur operativen Planung dar und enthalt aktuelle Beitrage aus den Bereichen Lagerhaltungs-, Losgrossen-, Touren- und Kostenplanung, mit denen ein vertiefter Einblick in das Management einzelner Teilprobleme der Reverse Logistics gegeben wird.

In diesem Special Issue stehen die Strategien sowie die Organisation der Demontage und Aufbereitung von Altprodukten im Sinne eines Closed-Loop Supply Chain Managements im Blickpunkt. Die Beitrage liefern einen aktuellen Einblick in den Stand der Wissenschaft und zeigen an Beispielen die Umsetzbarkeit der Verfahren.