Mathematical techniques play a vital role in formulating and solving theoretical and practical problems in the fields of engineering, business, and management. Stella Maris College and Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), Chennai, jointly hosted the International Conference on Mathematics in Engineering and Business Management during 9–10 March 2012, Chennai, India, inviting mathematicians, engineers, managers, and consultants from leading institutions. Given the important objective of the organizers to host an inclusive and affordable conference designed to reach as wide an audience as possible, the meeting was organized on a non-profit basis with an intense program. The ability to allow the low registration fee was facilitated by the very generous support of the sponsors: SPIC Educational Foundation, G. R. Thanga Maligai, Nalli Kuppusami Chetty, Lloyd Insulation, IOB, Stella Maris College, Ms. Vidya Viswanath, Scintel Technology, Sakthi Finance Limited, Sun TV Network Ltd., CVM Charities, and Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), DST, Government of India.

The program started each day at 8:30 a.m. and finished at 6:00 p.m. It was very heartening to find that many big names in the fields of applied mathematics and management agreed unhesitatingly to attend the conference. The conference proved to be exceptionally popular and attracted 200+ participants. Seven overseas delegates delivered plenary lectures and more than 10 eminent speakers from various parts of India addressed the participants of the conference. Parallel sessions for paper presentations and poster presentations were included to provide a research platform for young researchers to interact with experts and peers in active research areas. An indication of the success of the conference, in terms of number of papers received, was that extended versions of selected papers were to be published in special issues of four international journals, including this special issue of the Annals of Operations Research.

The editors of this special issue thank the referees who have generously given their time to review the submitted papers, resulting in improvements of the published versions in all cases. The review process was strict to ensure only high quality papers were accepted. It must be noted that out of 63 submissions only half were selected for publication after intense review processes and many revisions.

Guest Editors