A Perspective on Two Decades of Rapid Modeling It is an honor for me to be asked to write a foreword to the Proceedings of the 1st Rapid Modeling Conference. In 1987, when I coined the term Rapid Modeling to denote queuing modeling of manufacturing systems, I never imagined that two decades later there would be an international conference devoted to this topic I am delighted to see that there will be around 40 presentations at the conference by leading researchers from aroundthe world, and about half of these presentationsare represented by written papers published in this book. I...

Rapid Modelling and Quick Response presents new research developments in the fields of rapid modelling and quick response linked with performance improvements (based on lead time reduction, etc., as well as financial performance measures). This volume follows on from Rapid Modelling for Increasing Competitiveness, the first Rapid Modelling Conference proceedings.

The papers and teaching cases in this book were presented at the second Rapid Modelling Conference: "Quick Response - Intersection of Theory and Practice." The main focus of this collection is the transfer...