Nature-inspired heuristics for the multiple-vehicle selective pickup and delivery problem under maximum profit and incentive fairness criteria

This work focuses on wide-scale freight transportation logistics motivated by the sharp increase of on-line shopping stores and the upsurge of Internet as the most frequently utilized selling channel during the last decade. This huge ecosystem of one-click-away catalogs has ultimately unleashed the need for efficient algorithms aimed at properly scheduling the underlying transportation resources in an efficient fashion, especially over the so-called last mile of the distribution chain. In this context the selective pickup and delivery problem focuses on determining the optimal subset of packets that should be picked from its origin city and delivered to their corresponding destination within a given time frame, often driven by the maximization of the total profit of the courier service company. This manuscript tackles a realistic variant of this problem where the transportation fleet is composed by more than one vehicle, which further complicates the selection of packets due to the subsequent need for coordinating the delivery service from the command center. In particular the addressed problem includes a second optimization metric aimed at reflecting a fair share of the net benefit among the company staff based on their driven distance. To efficiently solve this optimization problem, several nature-inspired metaheuristic solvers are analyzed and statistically compared to each other under different parameters of the problem setup. Finally, results obtained over a realistic scenario over the province of Bizkaia (Spain) using emulated data will be explored so as to shed light on the practical applicability of the analyzed heuristics

A hybrid swarm-based algorithm for single-objective optimization problems involving high-cost analyses

In many technical fields, single-objective optimization procedures in continuous domains involve expensive numerical simulations. In this context, an improvement of the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm, called the Artificial super-Bee enhanced Colony (AsBeC), is presented. AsBeC is designed to provide fast convergence speed, high solution accuracy and robust performance over a wide range of problems. It implements enhancements of the ABC structure and hybridizations with interpolation strategies. The latter are inspired by the quadratic trust region approach for local investigation and by an efficient global optimizer for separable problems. Each modification and their combined effects are studied with appropriate metrics on a numerical benchmark, which is also used for comparing AsBeC with some effective ABC variants and other derivative-free algorithms. In addition, the presented algorithm is validated on two recent benchmarks adopted for competitions in international conferences. Results show remarkable competitiveness and robustness for AsBeC.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, Springer Swarm Intelligenc

Multi-objective discrete particle swarm optimisation algorithm for integrated assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing

In assembly optimisation, assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing have been extensively studied because both activities are directly linked with assembly efficiency that influences the final assembly costs. Both activities are categorised as NP-hard and usually performed separately. Assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing optimisation presents a good opportunity to be integrated, considering the benefits such as larger search space that leads to better solution quality, reduces error rate in planning and speeds up time-to-market for a product. In order to optimise an integrated assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing, this work proposes a multi-objective discrete particle swarm optimisation algorithm that used discrete procedures to update its position and velocity in finding Pareto optimal solution. A computational experiment with 51 test problems at different difficulty levels was used to test the multi-objective discrete particle swarm optimisation performance compared with the existing algorithms. A statistical test of the algorithm performance indicates that the proposed multi-objective discrete particle swarm optimisation algorithm presents significant improvement in terms of the quality of the solution set towards the Pareto optimal set

A Multi-Objective Variable Neighborhood Search Algorithm for Precast Production Scheduling

In real life, precast production schedulers face the challenges of creating a reasonable schedule to satisfy multiple conflicting objectives. Practical constraints and objectives encountered in the precast production scheduling problem (PPSP) were addressed, with the goal to minimize makespan and total earliness and tardiness penalties. A multi-objective variable neighborhood search (MOVNS) algorithm was proposed and the performance was tested on 11 problem instances. Ten of these were generated using precast concrete production information taken from the literature. One real industrial problem from a precast concrete company was considered as a case study. Extensive experiments were conducted, and the spread and distance metrics were used to evaluate the quality of the non-dominated solutions set. Statistical analysis demonstrated that the result was statistically convincing. Computational results showed that the proposed MOVNS algorithm was significantly better when compared to the other nine algorithms. Therefore, the proposed MOVNS algorithm was a very competitive method for the considered PPSP

Optimal SVC allocation via symbiotic organisms search for voltage security improvement

It is desirable that a power system operation is in a normal operating condition. However, the increase of load demand in a power system has forced the system to operate near to its stability limit whereby an increase in load poses a threat to the power system security. In solving this issue, optimal reactive power support via SVC allocation in a power system has been proposed. In this paper, Symbiotic Organisms Search (SOS) algorithm is implemented to solve for optimal allocation of SVC in the power system. IEEE 26 Bus Reliability Test System is used as the test system. Comparative studies are also conducted concerning Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Evolutionary Programming (EP) techniques based on several case studies. Based on the result, SOS has proven its superiority by producing higher quality solutions compared to PSO and EP. The results of this study can benefit the power system operators in planning for optimal power system operations

Application of Multi Objective Genetic Algorithm for Optimization of Core Configuration Design of a Fast Breeder Reactor

The optimization problem of nuclear fuel management, reported in the present  study aimed at arriving at the optimal number of subassemblies in the two fuel enrichment zones of the core of a 500 MWe Fast Breeder Reactor. The elitist multi-objective approach of Genetic Algorithm, namely Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II), was employed in the study. The five parameters considered for optimization are: core excess reactivity, liner heat ratings of inner and outer fuel enrichment zones of the core, fissile material inventory, and breeding ratio. The results obtained from the study indicate that the algorithm is able to produce feasible solutions in an efficient manner while preserving the diversity amongst them. The fast convergence and the diversity-preserving feature of the algorithm are described. The major objective of the work is to study the viability of applying the NSGA-II into the nuclear fuel management problems of fast breeder reactors