This title represents an ambitious undertaking, namely a broad view on the nature of intelligent decision making, which is characterized by the use of models and methods in the framework of decision support for management. With this title we want to reflect the scope of our field, but, at the same time, honor our colleague th Paul Stahly on the occasion of his 65 birthday. Paul Stahly has over decades invested his energy in developing the area of Operations Research from such a broad point of view. He has done this not only at his chairs at the HSG / University of St. Gallen and the University of Linz, but also on a broad international level as editor of ITOR and as influential member of all the Operations Research societies in the German speaking countries. He has, in particular, enriched our area by application-oriented research and industrial projects in fields such as logistics, emergency planning, [mance, and others, and he was pivotal in strengthening the cooperation between the national and international OR societies, particular in the German speaking area. VI Consequently, many colleagues who partly cooperated very closely with him, have contributed to this monograph. Some of these contributions have been presented at a colloquium in January 2001 in St. Gallen in honor of Paul Stahly. This colloquium was attended by many colleagues coming from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and even from the United States.

Kundenanforderungen und Kundenzufriedenheit sind Ausgangspunkt f r die Gestaltung bzw. Reorganisation der Gesch ftsprozesse eines Unternehmens. Das vorliegende Buch zeigt auf, wie kundenorientierte Prozessverbesserungen durchgef hrt werden, um die Wettbewerbsf higkeit zu st rken. Dabei gehen die Autoren besonders auf die Erhebung von Kundeninformationen, die Bestimmung von Schl sselprozessen und die Prozessbewertung ein. Der zweite Teil des Buches enth lt Fallstudien mit kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen der Eisen- und Stahlverarbeitenden Industrie, der Elektro-, der Konsumg ter- und der Textilindustrie. In diesen Fallstudien werden die Bausteine des im ersten Teil behandelten Konzepts praxisnah dargestellt.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 1997 International Symposium on Operations Research (SOR' 97) held at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena, Sep tember 3-5, 1997. The symposium was organized under the auspices of the two German societies on Operations Research, namely the Deutsche Gesellschajt fur Operations Research (DGOR) and the Gesellschajt fur Mathematik, Okonomie und Operations Research (GMOOR). During their annual business meetings, the DGOR and GMOOR members unanimously decided that their societies should be assimi lated by the newly founded Gesellschajt fur Operations Research (GOR). The SOR' 97 meeting was attended by 521 participants from 31 countries. The presentation of 360 papers was organized in 16 sections, each of which also saw semiplenary lectures by prominent invited speakers. Plenary lectures by J.K. Lenstra and P. Mertens as well as a panel discussion on the role of new communication media represented major academic events of the symposium. 131 papers were submitted for publication in the present volume. The space limitation and the advice of the section chairpersons only allowed for the inclusion of 85 contributed papers in the proceedings. Additionally, written versions of seven semiplenary lectures could be included in the volume. The abstracts of all 360 papers presented at the symposium can be obtained in electronic form from the WWW at http: //www.wiwLuni-jena.de/sor97.html."

Kundenanforderungen und Kundenzufriedenheit sind Ausgangspunkt fur die Gestaltung bzw. Reorganisation der Geschaftsprozesse eines Unternehmens. Das vorliegende Buch zeigt auf, wie kundenorientierte Prozessverbesserungen durchgefuhrt werden, um die Wettbewerbsfahigkeit zu starken. Dabei gehen die Autoren besonders auf die Erhebung von Kundeninformationen, die Bestimmung von Schlusselprozessen und die Prozessbewertung ein. Der zweite Teil des Buches enthalt Fallstudien mit kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen der Eisen- und Stahlverarbeitenden Industrie, der Elektro-, der Konsumguter- und der Textilindustrie. In diesen Fallstudien werden die Bausteine des im ersten Teil behandelten Konzepts praxisnah dargestellt."