Operations Research in Space and Air is a selection of papers reflecting the experience and expertise of international OR consulting companies and academic groups. The global market and competition play a crucial part in the decision making processes within the Space and Air industries and this book gives practical examples of how advanced applications can be used by Space and Air industry management. The material within the book provides both the basic background for the novice modeler and a useful reference for experienced modelers. Students, researchers and OR practitioners will appreciate the details of the modeling techniques, the processes that have been implemented and the computational results that demonstrate the benefits in applying OR in the Space and Airline industries. Advances in PC and Workstations technology, in optimiza tion engines and in modeling techniques now enable solving problems, never before attained by Operations Research. In recent years the Ital ian OR Society (AfRO, www. airo. org) has organized annual forums for researchers and practitioners to meet together to present and dis cuss the various scientific and technical OR achievements. The OR in Space 8 Air session of AfR02001 and AfR02002 Conferences, together with optimization tools' applications, presented recent results achieved by Alenia Spazio S. p. A. (Turin), Alitalia, Milan Polytechnic and Turin Polytechinc. With additional contributions from academia and indus try they have enabled us to capture, in print, today's 'state-of-the-art' optimization and data mining solutions.
