Truckload Shipment Planning and Procurement

This dissertation presents three issues encountered by a shipper in the context of truckload transportation. In all of the studies, we utilize optimization techniques to model and solve the problems. Each study is inspired from the real world and much of the data used in the experiments is real data or representative of real data. The first topic is about the freight consolidation in truckload transportation. We integrate it with a purchase incentive program to increase truckload utilization and maximize profit. The second topic is about supporting decision making collaboration among departments of a manufacturer. It is a bi-objective optimization model. The third topic is about procurement in an adverse market. We study a modification of the existing procurement process to consider the market stochastic into marking decisions. In all three studies, our target is to develop effectively methodologies to seek optimal answers within a reasonable amount of time

Overweight Vehicle Permitting Alternatives

Overweight vehicles exceed the federal and/or state statutory limits for either the gross vehicle weight (GVW) or the weight of individual axles or axle groups. National and state limits on vehicle weights were established to preserve the highway infrastructure. Past research has shown that overweight operations, while causing significant damage to roads and bridges, can enhance the trucking industry productivity, and thus yield economic benefits both regionally and nationally. In the United States, individual states administer oversize and overweight vehicle permit programs to regulate and collect revenues from overweight operations. Differences in the truck size and weight limits and overweight permit programs across the states inhibit seamless and efficient truck travel across the country. Agencies responsible for maintaining the highway infrastructure realize that the cost of consumption of the infrastructure far exceeds the collected revenues. The current study examines four options to improve overweight vehicle permitting systems: multiobjective optimization of traditional mechanisms, incentives for infrastructure-friendly vehicles, application of an auction-based quota for overweight vehicle operations, and opportunities for harmonizing the regulations covering overweight vehicle operations that differ across the states. The first three options are qualitatively and quantitatively applied to a case study involving Indiana\u27s newly-established overweight commodity permits for vehicles carrying metal (up to 120,000 lbs), and agricultural (up to 97,000 lbs) goods. An incremental approach to harmonization of truck size and weight regulations and overweight vehicle permitting systems is qualitatively described, including available tools and data needs to promote harmonization. The four options are not mutually exclusive; collectively, they provide opportunities for transportation decision makers to improve overweight vehicle permitting. Each option contributes to the ongoing discussion about how to address the issue of uncompensated consumption of highway infrastructure assets attributable to overweight vehicles. The multiobjective optimization formulated herein better reflects actual decisions made by both the agency and carriers than limited previous quantitative research. The quantification of willingness to pay for investment informs state agencies about the extent to which incentives for infrastructure-friendly vehicles can be adopted. The quota framework contained herein is an extension of strategies used previously to mitigate demand into a tool for controlling the amount of allowable infrastructure damage while collecting necessary revenues to protect infrastructure from undue damage. Finally, the harmonization of overweight vehicle permitting programs can streamline interstate overweight operations for both state agencies and carriers. The combination of several options can result in greater improvements to both the trucking industry\u27s productivity and the preservation of highway infrastructure than any option alone

Automated Negotiation Among Web Services

Software as a service is well accepted software deployment and distribution model that is grown exponentially in the last few years. One of the biggest benefits of SaaS is the automated composition of these services in a composite system. It allows users to automatically find and bind these services, as to maximize the productivity of their composed systems, meeting both functional and non-functional requirements. In this paper we present a framework for modeling the dependency relationship of different Quality of Service parameters of a component service. Our proposed approach considers the different invocation patterns of component services in the system and models the dependency relationship for optimum values of these QoS parameters. We present a service composition framework that models the dependency relations ship among component services and uses the global QoS for service selection

Preventing premature convergence and proving the optimality in evolutionary algorithms

http://ea2013.inria.fr//proceedings.pdfInternational audienceEvolutionary Algorithms (EA) usually carry out an efficient exploration of the search-space, but get often trapped in local minima and do not prove the optimality of the solution. Interval-based techniques, on the other hand, yield a numerical proof of optimality of the solution. However, they may fail to converge within a reasonable time due to their inability to quickly compute a good approximation of the global minimum and their exponential complexity. The contribution of this paper is a hybrid algorithm called Charibde in which a particular EA, Differential Evolution, cooperates with a Branch and Bound algorithm endowed with interval propagation techniques. It prevents premature convergence toward local optima and outperforms both deterministic and stochastic existing approaches. We demonstrate its efficiency on a benchmark of highly multimodal problems, for which we provide previously unknown global minima and certification of optimality

Hierarchical Multi-Project Planning and Supply Chain Management: an Integrated Framework

This work focuses on the need for new knowledge to allow hierarchical multi-project management to be conducted in the construction industry, which is characterised by high uncertainty, fragmentation, complex decisions, dynamic changes and long-distance communication. A dynamic integrated project management approach is required at strategic, tactical and operational levels in order to achieve adaptability. The work sees the multi-project planning and control problem in the context of supply chain management at main contractor companies. A portfolio manager must select and prioritise the projects, bid and negotiate with a wide range of clients, while project managers are dealing with subcontractors, suppliers, etc whose relationships and collaborations are critical to the optimisation of schedules in which time, cost and safety (etc) criteria must be achieved. Literature review and case studies were used to investigate existing approaches to hierarchical multi-project management, to identify the relationships and interactions between the parties concerned, and to investigate the possibilities for integration. A system framework was developed using a multi-agent-system architecture and utilising procedures adapted from literature to deal with short, medium and long-term planning. The framework is based on in-depth case study and integrates time-cost trade-off for project optimisation with multi-attribute utility theory to facilitate project scheduling, subcontractor selection and bid negotiation at the single project level. In addition, at the enterprise level, key performance indicator rule models are devised to align enterprise supply chain configuration (strategic decision) with bid selection and bid preparation/negotiation (tactical decision) and project supply chain selection (operational decision). Across the hierarchical framework the required quantitative and qualitative methods are integrated for project scheduling, risk assessment and subcontractor evaluation. Thus, experience sharing and knowledge management facilitate project planning across the scattered construction sites. The mathematical aspects were verified using real data from in-depth case study and a test case. The correctness, usefulness and applicability of the framework for users was assessed by creating a prototype Multi Agent System-Decision Support System (MAS-DSS) which was evaluated empirically with four case studies in national, international, large and small companies. The positive feedback from these cases indicates strong acceptance of the framework by experienced practitioners. It provides an original contribution to the literature on planning and supply chain management by integrating a practical solution for the dynamic and uncertain complex multi-project environment of the construction industry

ICE-B 2010:proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business

The International Conference on e-Business, ICE-B 2010, aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners who are interested in e-Business technology and its current applications. The mentioned technology relates not only to more low-level technological issues, such as technology platforms and web services, but also to some higher-level issues, such as context awareness and enterprise models, and also the peculiarities of different possible applications of such technology. These are all areas of theoretical and practical importance within the broad scope of e-Business, whose growing importance can be seen from the increasing interest of the IT research community. The areas of the current conference are: (i) e-Business applications; (ii) Enterprise engineering; (iii) Mobility; (iv) Business collaboration and e-Services; (v) Technology platforms. Contributions vary from research-driven to being more practical oriented, reflecting innovative results in the mentioned areas. ICE-B 2010 received 66 submissions, of which 9% were accepted as full papers. Additionally, 27% were presented as short papers and 17% as posters. All papers presented at the conference venue were included in the SciTePress Digital Library. Revised best papers are published by Springer-Verlag in a CCIS Series book

A multi-agent optimisation model for solving supply network configuration problems

Supply chain literature highlights the increasing importance of effective supply network configuration decisions that take into account such realities as market turbulence and demand volatility, as well as ever-expanding global production networks. These realities have been extensively discussed in the supply network literature under the structural (i.e., physical characteristics), spatial (i.e., geographical positions), and temporal (i.e., changing supply network conditions) dimensions. Supply network configuration decisions that account for these contingencies are expected to meet the evolving needs of consumers while delivering better outcomes for all parties involved and enhancing supply network performance against the key metrics of efficiency, speed and responsiveness. However, making supply network configuration decisions in the situations described above is an ongoing challenge. Taking a systems perspective, supply networks are typically viewed as socio-technical systems where SN entities (e.g., suppliers, manufacturers) are autonomous individuals with distinct goals, practices and policies, physically inter-connected transferring goods (e.g., raw materials, finished products), as well as socially connected with formal and informal interactions and information sharing. Since the structure and behaviour of such social and technical sub-systems of a supply network, as well as the interactions between those subsystems, determine the overall behaviour of the supply network, both systems should be considered in analysing the overall system