Service Systems Engineering and Management

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.

• Service Systems: An Overview. Forecasting Demand for Services. Design of Service. Evaluation of Service Systems. Supply Chain Engineering. Warehousing and Distribution. Financial Engineering. Revenue Management. Retail Engineering. Healthcare Delivery Systems. Financial Services. Exercises. References.

"I am thrilled to see this fabulous book getting published. I have been waiting for several years to offer a course on service engineering but never took the next step. As soon as I saw the contents of this book as well as the first couple of chapters, I got the inspiration to put in the paperwork to offer the course. The book is current, covers a vast set of service industries, goes deep in terms of analysis, focuses on applications of operations research, and is written like a textbook tailor made for classroom purposes. The authors bring in their years of experience into this masterpiece of a book. I am delighted that the authors have an extensive exercise section, several worked out examples, and are offering materials for other instructors. I cannot wait to read it cover to cover and teach the aforementioned course on service engineering. For me this book is the greatest thing since the slice of bread, and the Internet."— Natarajan Gautam, Texas A&M University, USA"This is a well written book by distinguished faculty members in the discipline. The material covered is state-of-the-art and clearly explained. I highly recommend this as a textbook and as a reference book in the newly emerging area in industrial engineering."— Bopaya Bidanda, University of Pittsburgh, USA