This book represents our view of the essential body of knowledge for an introductory operations
management course. It has been successfully used with all types of students, from
freshmen taking an introductory course in operations management, to MBAs, to executive
MBAs, and even PhD students.
Our guiding principle in the development of Matching Supply with Demand has been
“real operations, real solutions.” “Real operations” means that most of the chapters in this
book are written from the perspective of a specific company so that the material in this
text will come to life by discussing it in a real-world context. Companies and products are
simply easier to remember than numbers and equations. We have chosen a wide variety
of companies, small and large, representing services, manufacturing, and retailing alike.
While obviously not fully representative, we believe that—taken together—these cases
provide a realistic picture of operations management problems today.