Decision Support Models

There are no basic knowledge prerequisites other than those required for admission to this Masters course.

The teaching activity follows a presential regime, with the exposition of concepts, techniques and methods.

Objectives:
Today’s economic systems are strongly influenced by conflicting and usually contradictory interests and are characterised by multiple factors of a wider and almost always complex system. It is in this context that the manager makes its moves, being regularly asked to take decisions.

This course introduces mathematical modelling techniques for some of these problems, with particular focus on planning and management control. In this sense, linear and integer linear programming models will be studied, involving decision variables.

The discipline’s content will have a strong focus on the resolution of applied cases, using mathematical programming techniques. In this sense, problems that focus on investment planning, project selection with cash-flows, production management, financial management, project planning, work shifts and schedules will be analysed.

The resolution of larger problems will be supported by appropriate software.

Competences:
The student is expected to be able to model decision problems in the scope of the topics previously mentioned, using linear and integer linear programming. The student should also know techniques for solving this type of mathematical models.

1 – Linear and integer linear programming models

   1.1 – Mathematical formulation of problems

   1.2 – Applications of mathematical modelling to Business Management

   1.3 – Economic analysis of the models

2 – Solving techniques for continuous linear and integer linear programming

   2.1 – Description of the most used methcontiunous and integer linear programming

   2.2 – Softwares for solving larger sized problems

3 – Economic interpretation of the solutions

   3.1 – Sensitivity analysis

   3.2 – Parametric analysis

4 – Applications of continuous and integer linear programming to the decision analysis process

   4.1 – Investments planning and project selection with cash-flows

   4.2 – Production management

   4.3 – Financial management

   4.4 – Project planning

   4.5 – Shift scheduling and rostering

NAO

Essential Bibliography

–  Teaching materials produced by the teacher.

Supplementary Bibliography

– F.S. Hillier e G.J. Lieberman, Introdução à Pesquisa Operativa, McGraw Hill, 2006.

– R.L. Rardin, Optimization in Operations Research, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1998.

– W. J.  Stevensen, Operations Management, McGraw Hill, 8 th Ed, 2005.