December 1999 New Books Automation and Production Systems: Methodologies and Applications Edited by Hamid R. Parsaei This book provides a scientific and practical base for researchers, practitioners and students involved in the design and implementation of advanced manufacturing systems. It features a balance between state-of-the-art research and usefully reported applications. Among the topics that will be presented as part of this series are: strategic management and application of advanced manufacturing systems, cellular manufacturing systems, group technology, design simulation and virtual manufacturing, advanced materials handling systems, quantitative analysis, intelligent feature-base process planning, advanced genetic algorithms, computer-aided process planning, simultaneous engineering, economic evaluation of advanced technologies and concurrent design of products. The series encompasses three categories of books: reference books that include material of an archival nature; graduate-and post-graduate level texts, reference and tutorial books that could also be utilized by professional engineers; and monographs concerning newly developed trends in applications for manufacturing and automation engineering, as well as researchers and practitioners interested in product and process design, manufacturing systems design integration, and control and engineering management and economics. Enterprise E - Commerce By Peter Fingar, Harsha Kumar and Tarun Sharma To compete in the digital economy, Global 2,000 companies will need to change their business models, rethink the way they work and extend their internal business processes out to their suppliers, trading partners and customers. This comprehensive guide takes a holistic view of business and technology, enabling CEOs, COOs, CIOs, CTOs and project development teams to move boldly into their e-Commerce initiatives. IT takes on the challenge and issues of enterprise-class electronic commerce — a completely new infrastructure for a whole new way of doing business. It addresses the unique requirements of large-scale, mission-critical applications where agility, scalability, reliability, extensibility, interoperability and legacy integration are essential. The book teaches, inspires action and shares insight gained from the authors' pioneering work with Fortune 1,000 companies including GE, MasterCard and American Express. Successful Internal Auditing to ISO 9000 By Tom Taormina ISO 9000 certification requires that companies establish clear processes, follow them and verify that they've done so through formal audits. This book demonstrates how to perform nonconfrontational audits that don't just check paperwork, but contribute powerfully to ongoing quality improvement throughout the enterprise. This books brings together all the resources internal quality auditors need to audit and certify ISO 9000 compliance in nearly any manufacturing or service organization. Based on Tom Taormina's 30 years of quality auditing experience, it covers the entire audit process: organizing the audit team, planning and scheduling audits, writing audit reports and taking corrective action. High-Performance Communication Networks (2nd edition) By Jean Walrand and Pravin Varaiya By focusing on the convergence of the telephone, computer networking, cable TV and wireless industries, this fully revised second edition explains current and emerging networking technologies. The authors proceed from fundamental principles to develop a comprehensive understanding of network architectures, protocols, control, performance and economics. Communications engineers, computer scientists and, network administrators and managers will appreciate this book for its perspectives on the innovations that impact their work. Students will be enriched by the descriptive and thorough coverage of networking, giving them the knowledge to explore rewarding career opportunities. How Manufacturing Will Work in the Year 2020: The Technology Machine By Patricia Moody and Richard E. Morley How will autonomous agents, emergent systems and chaos theory change the way we live and work in the 21st century? As today's manufacturing and production systems grow increasingly complex, tomorrow's science of complexity will produce paradoxically simple solutions. This is the argument discussed in the book. Containing both cutting-edge insights and simple truths that provide a roadmap to the future of business - and illustrated by case samples from such companies as Motorola, Honda, GM, Solectron, Intel, Silicon Graphics, Modicon, Flavors, NeXT, Japanese Railway and Andover Controls — "The Technology Machine" challenges readers to understand the spirit and core drivers of growth: technology, knowledge and individual experience. Mathematical Finance: Options and Other Topics By Sheldon M. Ross This elementary introduction to the theory of options pricing presents the Black-Scholes theory of options, as well as such general topics in finance as the time value of money, rate of return of an investment cash-flow sequence, utility functions and expected utility maximization, mean variance analysis, optional portfolio selection and the capital assets pricing model. Note: The New Books department is designed to bring new titles of general interest to the attention of our readers. The book descriptions published here are gathered from book jackets, press releases and other sources provided by the publishers. Formal book reviews appear in the journal Interfaces. Table of Contents OR/MS Today Home Page OR/MS Today copyright © 1999 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. All rights reserved. Lionheart Publishing, Inc. 506 Roswell Street, Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060, USA Phone: 770-431-0867 | Fax: 770-432-6969 E-mail: lpi@lionhrtpub.com URL: http://www.lionhrtpub.com Web Site © Copyright 1999, 2000 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.