56171OperationsResearch.ppt

56:171 Operations Research Introduction Background B. E. in computer science, Tsinghua University, China, 1998 Ph. D., 2003, Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan Assistant professor, Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 2003—now Research area: Quality and reliability engineering; Sensor system design and analysis Prerequisites Review Questions Do you know how to solve a system of linear equations using Gaussian elimination? Can you draw a line on x-y plane given its equation? Do you know the meaning of convex and concave functions? Can you calculate the first and second derivatives of a given function? Do you know what is conditional probability? Do you know what is probability density function? Do you know the definition of expectation and variance of a random variable? Do you know how to use Excel to do some simple calculation? Grading Policy Attendance/participation 5% Homework 20% Exam 1 25% Exam 2 25% Exam 3 25% Course Coverage What is Operations Research? From military: research on (military) operations Today, operations research means a scientific approach to decision making, which seeks to determine how best to design and operate a system, usually under conditions requiring the allocation of scarce resources. Decision-Making We all make decisions, all of the time Day-to-day choices Business decisions Public policy decisions Feasibility vs. optimality decisions Easy vs. difficult Course Selection Example You have to decide your choice of courses for all the semesters that you are here Your choices are restricted by a number of rules You have to achieve a minimum number of credit hours You have to take each of the required courses at some point during the program Course Selection Example, Cont. You can take a course only if you have taken its pre-reqs You can not take two courses with time conflict You can not take more than a maximum number of credits each semester You have to take enough GEC courses from sp