Industrial Engineering Professor Publishes Third Book

University Relations

Greg Parnell

Gregory S. Parnell, research professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering, has just published his third book, Trade-off Analytics: Creating and Exploring the System Tradespace.

This book is written for upper undergraduate students and graduate students studying systems design, systems engineering, industrial engineering, and engineering management.

It presents a decision management process based on decision theory and cost analysis best practices aligned with the ISO/IEC 15288, the Systems Engineering Handbook, and the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge. It provides a sound framework to generate the tradespace and evaluate value, cost, and risk trade-offs to support system decision-making throughout the life cycle. Trade-off analysis and risk analysis techniques are examined. The authors present an integrated value trade-off and risk analysis framework based on decision theory. These trade-off analysis concepts are illustrated in the different life cycle stages by using multiple examples from defense and commercial domains.

Parnell is a research professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas and director of the M.S. in Operations Management program, the university's largest graduate program. His research focuses on decision and risk analysis. He is a fellow of the International Committee for Systems Engineering, the Institute for Operations Research/Management Science, the Society for Decision Professionals, and the Military Operations Research Society. He has won numerous awards including the 2014 Frank P. Ramsey Medal for distinguished contributions to the field of decision analysis. He previously taught at the West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Air Force Institute of Technology. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from Stanford University and is a retired Air Force colonel.