Abstract :
Decision makers at all levels of management are facing a global, complex and more competitive environment where critical decisions have to be made on a rational basis. Furthermore, the evaluation of the impact of the decisions made is difficult due to the strong internal and external interconnection between the organization and its environment. Organizations have to deal with more challenges due to fiercer competition, demanding customers, shorter product life cycle and supplier lead time, scarce and expensive resources and more constraining regulations. Therefore, operations require more flexible and highly sophisticated design, planning and production frameworks and techniques. Developing and improving modeling, optimization and simulation techniques is a mandatory step to face these challenges and seize new opportunities for efficient and responsive decision making in a more demanding and complex manufacturing and service environment.
