Location Theory And Decision Analysis

Employing state-of-the art quantitative models and case studies, Location Theory and Decision Analysis provides the methodologies behind the siting of such facilities as transportation terminals, warehouses, housing, landfills, state parks and industrial plants. Through its extensive methodological review, the book serves as a primer for more advanced texts on spatial analysis, including the monograph on Location, Transport and Land-Use by the same author. Given the rapid changes over the last decade, the Second Edition includes new analytic contributions as well as software survey of analytics and spatial information technology. While the First Edition served the professional community well, the Second Edition has substantially expanded its emphasis for classroom use of the volume. Extensive pedagogic materials have been added, going from the fundamental principles to open-ended exercises, including solutions to selected problems. The text is of value to engineering and business programs that offer courses in Decision and Risk Analysis, Muticriteria Decision-Making, and Facility Location and Layout. It should also be of interest to public policy programs that use geographic Information Systems and satellite imagery to support their analyses.

The purpose of this book is to provide readers with an introduction to the fields of decision making, location analysis, and project and machine scheduling. The combination of these topics is not an accident: decision analysis can be used to investigate decision seenarios in general, location analysis is one of the prime examples of decision making on the strategic Ievel, project scheduling is typically concemed with decision making on the tactical Ievel, and machine scheduling deals with decision making on the operational Ievel. Some of the chapters were originally contributed by different authors, and we have made every attempt to unify the notation, style, and, most importantly, the Ievel of the exposition. Similar to our book on Integer Programming and Network Models (Eiselt and Sandblom, 2000), the emphasis of this volume is on models rather than solution methods. This is particularly important in a book that purports to promote the science of decision making. As such, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as weil as practitioners, will find this volume beneficial. While different authors prefer different degrees of mathematical sophistication, we have made every possible attempt to unify the approaches, provide clear explanations, and make this volume accessible to as many readers as possible.

Decision Theory and Decision Analysis: Trends and Challenges is divided into three parts. The first part, overviews, provides state-of-the-art surveys of various aspects of decision analysis and utility theory. The second part, theory and foundations, includes theoretical contributions on decision-making under uncertainty, partial beliefs and preferences. The third section, applications, reflects the real possibilities of recent theoretical developments such as non-expected utility theories, multicriteria decision techniques, and how these improve our understanding of other areas including artificial intelligence, economics, and environmental studies.

The purpose of this book is to provide readers with an introduction to the fields of decision making, location analysis, and project and machine scheduling. The combination of these topics is not an accident: decision analysis can be used to investigate decision seenarios in general, location analysis is one of the prime examples of decision making on the strategic Ievel, project scheduling is typically concemed with decision making on the tactical Ievel, and machine scheduling deals with decision making on the operational Ievel. Some of the chapters were originally contributed by different authors, and we have made every attempt to unify the notation, style, and, most importantly, the Ievel of the exposition. Similar to our book on Integer Programming and Network Models (Eiselt and Sandblom, 2000), the emphasis of this volume is on models rather than solution methods. This is particularly important in a book that purports to promote the science of decision making. As such, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as weil as practitioners, will find this volume beneficial. While different authors prefer different degrees of mathematical sophistication, we have made every possible attempt to unify the approaches, provide clear explanations, and make this volume accessible to as many readers as possible.

Facility location theory develops the idea of locating one or more facilities by optimizing suitable criteria such as minimizing transportation cost, or capturing the largest market share. The contributions in this book focus an approach to facility location theory through game theoretical tools highlighting situations where a location decision is faced by several decision makers and leading to a game theoretical framework in non-cooperative and cooperative methods. Models and methods regarding the facility location via game theory are explored and applications are illustrated through economics, engineering, and physics. Mathematicians, engineers, economists and computer scientists working in theory, applications and computational aspects of facility location problems using game theory will find this book useful.

Decision Analysis, Game Theory, and Information teaches the basics of decision analysis and game theory, the fundamental tools used over the past half-century by clients, whether businesses, government institutions, or other entities or individuals. Additionally, a brief introduction to basic concepts involving imperfect information concerning other parties are introduced. This handbook is designed for use as a supplementary test for a first-year course, and could also be used in connection with a course on legal methods or law and economics.This handbook comprises Chapters 1 and 2 of Analytical Methods for Lawyers, with appendix and revisions.

Decision Analysis for Management Judgment is unique in its breadth of coverage of decision analysis methods. It covers both the psychological problems that are associated with unaided managerial decision making and the decision analysis methods designed to overcome them. It is presented and explained in a clear, straightforward manner without using mathematical notation. This latest edition has been fully revised and updated and includes a number of changes to reflect the latest developments in the field.

The design and location of production facilities are important aspects of corporate strategy which can have a significant impact on the socio economy of nations and regions. Here, these decisions are recognized as being interrelated; that is, the optimal plant design (input mix and output level) depends on the location of the plant, and the optimal location of the plant depends on the design of the plant. Until the late 1950s, however, the questions of where a firm should locate its plant and what should be its planned input mix and output level were treated, for the most part, as separate questions, and were investigated by different groups of research ers. Although there was some recognition that these questions are inter I 1928; Hoover 1948; Isard 1956], no detailed analysis related [e. g. , Pre doh or formal structure was developed combining these two problems until the work of Moses [1958]. In recent years scholarly interest in the integrated production/locaton decision has been increasing rapidly. At the same time that research on the integrated production/location problem was expanding, significant related work was occurring in the fields of operations research, transportation science, industrial engineering, eco nomics, and geography. Unfortunately, the regional scientists working on the production/location problem had little contact with researchers in other fields. They generally publish in different journals and attend dif ferent professional meetings. Consequently, little of the recent work in these fields has made its way into the production/location research and vice versa.

The book covers both theory and applications of locational analysis (LocAn). The reader will see the power of LocAn models in various real-world contexts, varying from communication design to robotics and mail delivery. It is divided into two parts. The first part contains an overview of some of the LocAn methodologies. The second part describes in thorough detail some selected applications. The text provides researchers with an excellent and well thought-out review of available location models.