Logistics Systems Analysis

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John Weyant

The primary objective of Energy and Environmental Policy Modeling is to introduce a variety of recent energy-environmental modeling concepts, and to provide an overview of these modeling concepts. Another major objective of the book is the application of management science techniques to energy and environment policy issues which have expanded dramatically over the last twenty-five years: the results from these applications have become increasingly relied upon by those making energy and environmental decisions. Thus, an overview of some of the most interesting work in this field on some of the biggest contemporary policy issues is a worthy objective. In this respect, policy issues are discussed in the following conceptual modeling frameworks: end-use modeling, integrating supply and demand, aggregate energy-economy interactions, and multi-sector energy-economy interactions. Hence the book begins with policy studies. First there is a chapter on oil resource depletion and technological change by John Rowse. Two articles on electric sector restructuring follow, by William Hogan and Hung-po Chao/Stephen Peck. The first section is followed by four chapters motivated by the debate over appropriate climate change policies: one by Richard Richels, Jae Edmonds, Howard Gruenspecht, and Tom Wigley on the implications of different carbon emission trajectories; one by Stephen Peck and Thomas Telsberg on appropriate emissions trajectories under uncertainty; one by Susan Swinehart on the potential of tree planting as a climate policy response; and one by Gunter Stephan on inter-generational discounting. Finally, the book ends with a chapter by Tom Rutherford on the sequence of linear complimentarity problem technique for solving general equilibrium problems, and one on the International Energy Network by Leo Schrattenholzer, an institution managed jointly by Schrattenholzer and Alan Manne. The work of Professor Alan Manne is heavily referenced in every chapter of this book.

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Carlos F. Daganzo

This book examines logistics systems in an integrated way. Its goal is to describe and show how to find rational structures for logistics systems considering all the relevant aspects. Building on an understanding of the simplest logistical system with only one origin and one destination, the book treats problems with many origins and one destination, many destinations and one origin, and many origins and many destinations; this is done for systems with and without transshipments. The solutions and methodologies presented in the book are particularly helpful in instances where detailed data are not available and when time is of the essence.

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Alireza Faed

This thesis addresses the issue of customer complaints in the context of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Following a comprehensive survey of the current literature on CRM, it describes the development of a new intelligent CRM (I-CRM) framework, which integrates in a single approach different innovative analytical methods. Unlike conventional approaches, this new methodology can handle customer complaints with respect to different variables, thus allowing organizations to find their key customers and key complaints, and to address and provide solutions for their major complaints, hence promoting business development. The thesis also describes the successful application of the method to a real-world case: the virtually immeasurable number of complaints from truck drivers at the port city Fremantle in Western Australia.

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Rögnvaldur Hannesson

Mineral deposits are non-renewable; they do not grow in the ground. Sustainable use of finite mineral wealth requires that revenues from mineral extraction be invested in renewable wealth, education and infrastructure, machines and other production equipment, or in financial assets. Different countries, states and provinces have done so with a varying degree of success. Investing for Sustainability: The Management of Mineral Wealth highlights mineral rents investment funds in Norway, Alaska and Alberta, all of which derive considerable revenues from the production of petroleum bound to diminish over time. The book examines the institutional and political framework in which these funds are embedded and how successfully they have been used for making non-renewable petroleum wealth permanent. Investing for Sustainability: The Management of Mineral Wealth begins with a discussion of the elusive concept of sustainability. New technology and substitution has made a resource like peat obsolete long before it became exhausted physically. Jevons' famous book "The Coal Question" is discussed at some length as a case of unwarranted concern about the depletion of resources. The book also highlights other cases which strike a less happy note. Nauru, one of the smallest sovereign states in the world, has for decades lived off phosphate resources that are now running out. Nauru attempted to make its phosphate wealth permanent through investment funds but failed. Despite its success with its Permanent Fund, less of the oil wealth of Alaska has been made permanent than would appear warranted, and the same is true of Alberta and Norway. Judging from the experiences of the three funds, and the current political debate in Norway, Investing for Sustainability: The Management of Mineral Wealth suggests that it is essential that the citizenry at large benefit directly from mineral rents investment funds if they are to succeed.