This issue contains four articles and one case study. The first article on "Meta Heuristic Approach for Simultaneous Delivery and Pick-up Problem of Banking Industry", by S P Anbuudayasankar, K Ganesh and K Mohandas deals with the designing of an efficient heuristic to solve the ATM routing problem. In ATM servicing, daily transportation routes are required for carrying cash to out-of-branch bank ATMs and also pick-up the cash deposited (not yet in vogue in India) at the ATMs. The ATM routing is similar to the Standard Vehicle Routing Problem (SVRP) and the authors have developed a model using Simulated Annealing (SA) technique for determining efficient routes.

The second article on, "Web Integrated Decision Support System for Machine Scheduling and Inventory Management", by L Sivarama Krishna, G Ranga Janardhan and CSP Rao deals with the development and implementation of a web-supported Decision Support System (DSS) that integrates machine scheduling with inventory management for a job shop type of industry. The authors have developed the system in three phases, starting with the development of a scheduling system, followed by the development of the inventory system and finally web enabling the integrated system.

In the third article on "A Genetic Algorithm based optimization Technique for Scheduling Identical Machines in Flexible Manufacturing Systems", by Vijay Kumar M, A N N Murthy and K Chandrashekhara, the authors have developed a Genetic Algorithm (GA) based scheduling system for solving an optimization problem in a flexible manufacturing job shop environment. The results of the numerical examples given by the authors indicate that the algorithm is also suitable for larger scale scheduling problems.

The fourth article, "Interactive Decision Making in Prioritized Unbalanced Transportation Problems", by R K Dwivedi, N N Mehta and O P Dubey deal with an unbalanced problem regarding transportation of coal from four production points to three consumption points in a coalfield area. The authors developed a Goal Programming (GP) based model to address the transportation problem and make it capable of handling multiple objectives that can be prioritized by the decision maker.

This issue concludes with a case study on "Efficient Project Management at TransWorks Information Services Pvt. Ltd., An Indian-Based BPO Company". The case discusses numerous operational and logistical problems and disscusses the innovative operation strategies used by the management to solve them.

We hope that the contents of this issue will provide useful insights into contemporary thoughts and practices in the area of operations management.

-- Sumitro Saha
Consulting Editor