Supply Chain Management and Advanced Planning Systems -- Introduction: Models, Model Building and Optimization -- Model Building in SAP APO Supply Network Planning -- Optimization in SAP APO -- Detailed Case-Studies -- Planning in Semiconductor Manufacturing -- Consumer Products -- Customized Optimization Solutions for the Automotive and Chemical Industries -- Operative Planning in the Process Industry -- Case Studies — Interfacing Tailored Models to SAP APO -- Concluding Considerations - The Future -- Summary, Visions and Perspective.

Optimization is a serious issue, touching many aspects of our life and activity. But it has not yet been completely absorbed in our culture. In this book the authors point out how relatively young even the word “model” is. On top of that, the concept is rather elusive. How to deal with a technology that ?nds applicationsinthingsasdi?erentaslogistics,robotics,circuitlayout,?nancial deals and tra?c control? Although, during the last decades, we made signi?cant progress, the broad public remained largely unaware of that. The days of John von Neumann, with his vast halls full of people frantically working mechanical calculators are long gone. Things that looked completely impossible in my youth, like solving mixed integer problems are routine by now. All that was not just achieved by ever faster and cheaper computers, but also by serious progress in mathematics. But even in a world that more and more understands that it cannot a?ord to waste resources, optimization remains to a large extent unknown. R It is quite logical and also fortunate that SAP , the leading supplier of enterprise management systems has embedded an optimizer in his software. The authors have very carefully investigated the capabilities and the limits of APO. Remember that optimization is still a work in progress. We do not have the tool that does everything for everybody.