This text is intended to be used for courses on "modern" principles of production and operations management. During the past 15 years there have been a number of fundamental changes in production management thinking and philosophy. Unfortunately, much of this has been associated with a number of "competing" packaged systems of production management such as MRP, JIT, OPT. The objective of this book is to present a coherent and integrated account of these new emergent principles by starting from the basic dynamics of production process, showing how different techniques are applicable in different manufacturing environments and competitive strategic situations. The book is intended to replace current texts on production management which are either oriented towards mathematical operations research approaches or deal with MRP, JIT, etc as distinct and different approches without synthesizing the emergent common principles.