Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Barry Render, Consulting Editor at FT Press, for encouraging me to tackle this project. Barry has been a mentor for me for longer than he realizes, and I greatly admire his lifetime of work helping to bring the fields of operations management and management science to the masses. I am also very grateful for my Executive Editor on this project, Jeanne Glasser Levine, for providing excellent guidance and suggestions while leaving me free to try to shape the contents of the book into my own vision. A huge thank you, of course, goes out to the 49 other contributors of the enclosed cases, without whom this book would not have been possible. It has been a true joy to meet (electronically) and work with so many wonderful scholars from around the world who all have been very responsive to my nagging requests. They are excited to share their work and insights with you, the reader. Finally, on a personal note, I am deeply indebted to my wife, Kim, for all of her encouragement and patience during this lengthy process that included many late nights. And I dedicate this book to my late parents, Karl and Barbara Munson. They always wanted to see me do something like this but didn’t quite get to see the finished product in time. Anything positive that I’ve accomplished in life is due to them.