1 research outputs found
Using 3D-printing in disaster response: The two-stage stochastic 3D-printing knapsack problem
In this paper, we will shed light on when to pack and use 3D-printers in
disaster response operations. For that, we introduce a new type of problem,
which we call the two-stage stochastic 3D-printing knapsack problem. We provide
a two-stage stochastic programming formulation for this problem, for which both
the first and the second stage are NP-hard integer linear programs. We
reformulate this formulation to an equivalent integer linear program, which can
be efficiently solved by standard solvers. Our numerical results illustrate
that for most situations using a 3D-printer is beneficial. Only in extreme
circumstances, where the quality of printed items is extremely low, the size of
the 3D-printer is extremely large compared to the knapsack size, when there is
no time to print the items, or when demand for items is low, packing no
3D-printers is the best option