Modelling in Mathematical Programming: Methodology and Techniques

This book provides basic tools for learning how to model in mathematical programming, from models without much complexity to complex system models. It presents a unique methodology for the building of an integral mathematical model, as well as new techniques that help build under own criteria.

It allows readers to structure models from the elements and variables to the constraints, a basic modelling guide for any system with a new scheme of variables, a classification of constraints and also a set of rules to model specifications stated as logical propositions, helping to better understand models already existing in the literature. It also presents the modelling of all possible objectives that may arise in optimization problems regarding the variables values.

The book is structured to guide the reader in an orderly manner, learning of the components that the methodology establishes in an optimization problem. The system includes the elements, whichare all the actors that participate in the system, decision activities that occur in the system, calculations based on the decision activities, specifications such as regulations, impositions or actions of defined value and objective criterion, which guides the resolution of the system.

Jose Manuel Garcia Sanchez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Organization and Business Management in the Higher Technical School of Engineering, University of Seville, Spain. His research interests include Optimization, Scheduling, Mathematical Programming, Production Management, Statistics and Operations Research, Metaheuristic Techniques, and Modeling of Mathematical Programming.