Strategic Network Design for Delivery by Drones under Service-based Competition

In today’s world, E-commerce is a fast growing industry and e-retailers are looking for innovative ways to deliver customer orders within short delivery times at a low cost. Currently, the use of drone technology for last-mile delivery is being developed by such companies as Amazon, FedEx, and UPS. Drones are relatively cheaper and faster than trucks but are limited in range and may be restricted in landing and takeoff. Most of the work in the Operations Research literature focusses on the operational challenges of integrating drones with truck delivery. The more strategic questions of whether it is economically feasible to use drones and the effects on distribution network design are rarely addressed. These questions are the focus of this work. We consider an e-retailer offering multiple same day services using both existing vehicles and drones, and develop a facility location problem under service-based competition where the services offered by the e-retailer not only compete with the stores (convenience, grocery, etc.), but also with each other. The competition in the market is incorporated using the Multinomial Logit (MNL) market share model. To solve the resulting nonlinear mathematical formulation we develop a novel logic-based Benders decomposition approach. We also show that the nonlinear model can be transformed into a linear mixed integer formulation. Computational experiments show that our algorithm outperforms direct solution of the linear formulation. We carry out extensive numerical testing of the model and perform sensitivity analyses over pricing, delivery time, government regulations, technological limitations, customer behavior, and market size. The results show that government regulations play a vital role in determining the future of drone delivery

Estudo de localização de estações de Corpo de Bombeiros

Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Tecnologia, Departamento de Engenharia de Produção, 2017.O tempo de atendimento dos serviços emergenciais é um dos fatores mais importantes para garantir o bem-estar, conforto e dependendo do caso até a sobrevivência das vítimas. O Corpo de Bombeiros é um dos organismos que prestam atendimento às vítimas de diversos tipos de acidentes. Para reduzir o tempo e a distância entre a estação de corpo de bombeiros e os locais das chamadas, a localização de facilidades apresenta-se como um instrumento para apontar o local mais apropriado. Este trabalho então busca mostrar a importância de se utilizar o estudo de localizações não só na área privada como também na área pública. Em particular, este trabalho tem como objetivo verificar se o 15º GBM, em Brasília, está instalado na melhor localização possível e se será necessário instalar novas estações ou realocar as já existentes, através dos métodos de p-centro e p-mediana.The time of emergency services is one of the most important factors to guarantee the welfare, comfort and depending on the case even the survival of the victims. The Fire Department is one of the organizations that provide assistance to victims of various types of accidents. To reduce the time and distance between a fire station and service locations, a facility location is presented as an instrument for the most appropriate location. This work then focuses to show the importance of using the study of locations not only in the private area but also in the public area. In particular, this work has the main purpose of verify if the 15th GBM, in Brasília, is installed in the best possible location and whether it will be necessary to install new stations or relocate the existing stations through the p-center and p-median methods

A study on China digital music channel mode and channel coordination

Content providers, service providers and telecom operators in China digital music market compete expanding to upstream and downstream channel resource. The fierce channel competition between participants has impede user service level and the development of digital music market. This paper researches into two questions. The first one is how the participants compete in four different competitive channel modes, in which revenue and service level are influenced. The second one is how participants can optimize revenue in coordination rather than competition. To answer to first question, firstly the participants, digital music service modes and channel modes are analyzed. Then considering the service level provided by telecom operator and service provider, two-partite and three-partite Stackelberg models are constructed to explore the four competitive modes, which are High Price without Service Provider (SP) Mode, "Low Price+Shared Revenue" without SP Mode, High Price with SP participation Mode and "Low Price+Shared Revenue" with SP participation Mode. Besides, optimal strategies in four modes are calculated and numerical analysis approach is adopted to explore the influence of different factors on the equilibrium results, which are digital music service production cost coefficient, revenue sharing ratio, user price sensitive factor and user service level sensitive factor. To find out solution to the second question, cooperative channel without SP participation mode and cooperative channel with SP participation mode are built to maximum the revenue of digital music channel participants. Finally two-partite and three-partite revenue sharing mechanisms basing on the participants' bargaining power are explored to achieve the optimal channel system revenue. This study finds that in the four competitive digital music channel modes, the participants competing with each other leads to revenue loss. Whether SP participates, digital music channel participants revenue and system revenue in High Price Mode are better than those in "Low Price+Shared Revenue" Mode. The optimal competitive mode is High Price without SP Participation Mode. To achieve channel coordination, if without SP participating, Telecom Operator (OP) and Content Provider (CP) formulate contract according to proportion k=1/4+?/4 to share revenue, otherwise CP, SP and OP share revenue according to proportion k,v

Location-allocation problem for banking correspondent services : the colombian urban market case

Banking correspondents are a channel through which third parties operate on behalf of a bank, under a contract authorising the provision of some banking services. This model has been implemented extensively in developing countries, as a channel to increase financial inclusion by bringing financial products and services closer to marginalised populations. However, there is a lack of studies on the criteria employed by banks when selecting retailers to turn into banking correspondents (BC), in turn preventing the channel from offering a service portfolio adequate to the capacities of the retailers providing this kind of services, affecting the profitability and sustainability of the channel. The current research parted from the agency theory, which allowed to understand the relationship between the parties involved in the delivery of BC services, seeking to boost financial inclusion in Colombia through the development of the BC channel by solving the problem of location and portfolio allocation for retailers acting as banking correspondents in Colombian urban zones. It parted from the case of Bogota, where improvements were achieved in the selection of retailers and portfolio allocation, thus enhancing the relationship between agents, allowing banks to select banking correspondents and allocating them a particular service portfolio, while transaction volumes and channel profits are maximised. This was done through the development of a methodology comprising five stages, namely: (a) the development of a taxonomy on network integration models and financial services; (b) the development of a taxonomy on the strategies of small and medium retailers that could be selected as banking correspondents; (c) the validation of both taxonomies through cluster analyses; (d) validation of the resulting classifications through an ANOVA and a Kruskal-Wallis H test; and (e) the elaboration of a chance-constrained programming model that uses the elements built and validated in the formers stages. A classification of retailers was obtained from factors related to their operational and business strategies, as well as a classification of banking correspondents based on their service portfolios. It was also noted there is a significant relationship between the groups from both classifications, which led to the chance-constrained programming model being run on a sample of retailers in Bogotá, located at the borough of Suba. The model enabled to select those retailers best suited to become banking correspondents, determining the number of transactions according to their constraints in terms of retailer capabilities, banks and the environment, while estimating the expected income from these banking correspondent operationsTesi

A multi-period facility location model for service organizations operating in a competitive environment.

This thesis develops a multi-period, mathematical programming location model for facilities operating in a competitive environment. The objective is to maximize the profit in a variable demand environment. The solution of the problem can either be done in a robust or in a dynamic manner. A robust solution methodology forecasts the demand for all the periods in the planning horizon and provides a robust solution that may be suboptimal for any given period, but optimal when all the periods are taken into consideration. A problem with this approach is that it requires accurate forecast of demand for multiple periods into the future, which is not easy especially when the number of periods is large or the length of each period is long. The dynamic solution methodology circumvents this problem by only considering the demand for the next period in making location decisions. The drawback of this approach is that it may call for frequent closing of existing facilities and opening of new or previously closed facilities and the cost of doing so may be rather high in many environments. However, the cost of opening and closing facilities may not be as high as the benefits of doing so for many service organizations