In this paper we provide a finite set of candidates to be one of the endpoints of an optimal rapid transit line for the problem of locating simultaneously a service facility and a rapid transit line. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The influence of IT investment on hospital efficiency and quality are of great interest to healthcare executives as well as insurers. Few studies have examined how IT investments influence both efficiency and quality or whether there is an optimal IT investment level that influences both in the desired direction. Decision makers in healthcare wonder if there are tradeoffs between their pursuit ...

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Product variety has been on the increase for the last several years. Firms are striving to identify effective operational strategies to deal with it. Postponement can be a powerful strategy for managing product variety. In this paper, we introduce concepts related to postponement, discuss successful industrial applications and identify key enablers and factors influencing the successful impleme...

Identifying research gaps is a fundamental goal of literature reviewing. While it is widely acknowledged that literature reviews should identify research gaps, there are no methodological guidelines for how to identify research gaps in qualitative literature reviews ensuring rigor and replicability. Our study addresses this gap and proposes a framework that should help scholars in this endeavor...

This paper is an inquiry into the nature and characteristics of the so-called soft approaches in Operational Research (OR). After a first outline of soft approaches, six wellknown and widely applied soft approaches are selected for further study and characterisation applying a multi-dimensional framework. In addition, some reflexions about the limitations of such a framework are discussed.