Service Systems Engineering and Management

Recipient of the 2019 IISE Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers Joint Publishers Book-of-the-Year Award This is a comprehensive textbook on service systems engineering and management. It emphasizes the use of engineering principles to the design and operation of service enterprises. Service systems engineering relies on mathematical models and methods to solve problems in the service industries. This textbook covers state-of-the-art concepts, models and solution methods important in the design, control, operations and management of service enterprises. Service Systems Engineering and Management begins with a basic overview of service industries and their importance in today’s economy. Special challenges in managing services, namely, perishability, intangibility, proximity and simultaneity are discussed. Quality of service metrics and methods for measuring them are then discussed. Evaluating the design and operation of service systems frequently involves the conflicting criteria of cost and customer service. This textbook presents two approaches to evaluate the performance of service systems – Multiple Criteria Decision Making and Data Envelopment Analysis. The textbook then discusses several topics in service systems engineering and management – supply chain optimization, warehousing and distribution, modern portfolio theory, revenue management, retail engineering, health systems engineering and financial services.Features: Stresses quantitative models and methods in service systems engineering and management Includes chapters on design and evaluation of service systems, supply chain engineering, warehousing and distribution, financial engineering, healthcare systems, retail engineering and revenue management Bridges theory and practice Contains end-of-chapter problems, case studies, illustrative examples, and real-world applications Service Systems Engineering and Management is primarily addressed to those who are interested in learning how to apply operations research models and methods for managing service enterprises. This textbook is well suited for industrial engineering students interested in service systems applications and MBA students in elective courses in operations management, logistics and supply chain management that emphasize quantitative analysis.

About the Author

A. Ravi Ravindran has been a professor and former department head of industrial and manufacturing engineering at the Pennsylvania State University (1997-2017). He is an Emeritus Professor now. Formerly, he was a faculty member in the school of industrial engineering at Purdue University (1969-1982) and at the University of Oklahoma (1982-1997). At Oklahoma, he served as the Director of the school of industrial engineering for 8 years and as the Associate Provost for the university for 7 years.

Dr. Ravindran has published 8 books ( Operations Research, Engineering Optimization, Operations Research and Management Science Handbook, Operations Research Methodologies, Operations Research Applications, Supply Chain Engineering, Multiple Criteria Decision Making in Supply Chain Management and Big Data Analytics using Multiple Criteria Decision-Making Models ) and over 150 journal articles in operations research. His recent book on Supply Chain Engineering received the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) Book-of-the-Year Award in 2013. He currently serves as the Operations Research Series Editor for Taylor & Francis Group/CRC Press.

Paul Griffin is the St. Vincent Health Chair and Director of the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering at Purdue University and a professor in the Schools of Industrial Engineering and Biomedical Engineering (2017-present). His research interests are in healthcare engineering, health analytics, cost and comparative effectiveness in public health, and supply chain coordination.

Vittal Prabhu is currently a Professor in the Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State, where he started his academic career as an assistant professor in 1996. He also serves as the Director of Service Enterprise Engineering 360. Vittal works in the area of distributed control systems with a focus on manufacturing and service enterprises consisting of discrete-events, physical processes, and service processes.