Model Building in Mathematical Programming

Williams (London School of Economics) explains how to build models in mathematical programs used in operational research and management science. The material could be used by university students, managers, and general readers looking for an alternative to verbal description for understanding how an organization works. He describes the principles and procedures for creating a model, poses sample problems in various businesses, analyzes and discusses the problems, and provides solutions to them. The topics include building linear programming models, applications and special types of mathematical programming model, non-linear models, building integer programming models, and implementing a mathematical programming system of planning. The problems concern such areas as food manufacture, mining, hydro power, milk collection, car rental, and protein folding. First published in 1978 and revised here from the 1999 edition. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
The 5th edition of Model Building in Mathematical Programming discusses the general principles of model building in mathematical programming and demonstrates how they can be applied by using several simplified but practical problems from widely different contexts. Suggested formulations and solutions are given together with some computational experience to give the reader a feel for the computational difficulty of solving that particular type of model. Furthermore, this book illustrates the scope and limitations of mathematical programming, and shows how it can be applied to real situations. By emphasizing the importance of the building and interpreting of models rather than the solution process, the author attempts to fill a gap left by the many works which concentrate on the algorithmic side of the subject.