Operations Research Letters Book Review

“Planning and Scheduling in Manufacturing and Services” written by Michael L. Pinedo and published in the Springer Series in Operations Research is a recent book intended for a senior level or master level course on planning and scheduling either in an engineering or a business school. The book consists of four parts. Part I introduces the main features of scheduling models in manufacturing and in services. Part II focuses on models in manufacturing, in particular on project planning and scheduling, machine and shop scheduling, flexible assembly systems scheduling, economic lot scheduling, and supply chain scheduling. Part III focuses on models in services, in particular on timetabling, scheduling in sports and entertainment, planning and timetabling in transportation, and workforce scheduling. Part IV deals with planning and scheduling system design, development and implementation. Part I consists of Chapters 1–3. Chapter 1 takes the reader through a number of environments ranging from an automobile assembly line through a soccer league tournament to hospitals and airports in order to underline the role and the impact of the planning and scheduling function on modern manufacturing and service systems. Chapters 2 and 3 describe the basic characteristics of the manufacturing and service models considered in Parts II and III. Part II consists of Chapters 4–8. Chapter 4 is a primer on project scheduling. It covers the CPM and PERT methods, the time/cost trade-off analysis, and project scheduling with personnel constraints. Chapter 5 focuses mainly on minimizing the makespan