Biological System Behaviours and Natural-inspired Methods and Their Applications to Supply Chain Management

People have learnt from biological system behaviours and structures to design and develop a number of different kinds of optimisation algorithms that have been widely used in both theoretical study and practical applications in engineering and business management. An efficient supply chain is very important for companies to survive in global competitive market. An effective SCM (supply chain management) is the key for implement an efficient supply chain. Though there have been considerable amount of study of SCM, there have been very limited publications of applying the findings from the biological system study into SCM. In this paper, through systematic literature review, various SCM issues and requirements are discussed and some typical biological system behaviours and natural-inspired algorithms are evaluated for the purpose of SCM. Then the principle and possibility are presented on how to learn the biological systems' behaviours and natural-inspired algorithms for SCM and a framework is proposed as a guide line for users to apply the knowledge learnt from the biological systems for SCM. In the framework, a number of the procedures have been presented for using XML to represent both SCM requirement and bio-inspiration data. To demonstrate the proposed framework, a case study has been presented for users to find the bio-inspirations for some particular SCM problems in automotive industry

A Modelling of Genetic Algorithm for Inventory Routing Problem Simulation Optimisation

This paper presents the simulation optimization modelling for Inventory Routing Problem (IRP) using Genetic Algorithm method. The IRP simulation model is based on the stochastic periodic Can-Deliver policy that allows early replenishment for the retailers who have reached the can-deliver level and consolidates the delivery with other retailers that have reached or fallen below the must-deliver level. The Genetic Algorithm is integrated into the IRP simulation model as optimizer in effort to determine the optimal inventory control parameters that minimized the total cost. This study implemented a Taguchi Method for the experimental design to evaluate the GA performance for different combination of population and mutation rate and to determine the best parameters setting for GA with respect to the computational time and best generation number on determining the optimal inventory control. The result shows that the variations of the mutation rate parameter significantly affect the performance of IRP model compared to population size at 95% confidence level. The implementation of elite preservation during the mutation stage is able to improve the performance of GA by keeping the best solution and used for generating the next population. The results indicated that the best generation number is obtained at GA configuration settings on large population sizes (100) with low mutation rates(0.08). The study also affirms the premature convergence problem faced in GA that required improvement by integrating with the neighbourhood search approach

Resolving forward-reverse logistics multi-period model using evolutionary algorithms

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd In the changing competitive landscape and with growing environmental awareness, reverse logistics issues have become prominent in manufacturing organizations. As a result there is an increasing focus on green aspects of the supply chain to reduce environmental impacts and ensure environmental efficiency. This is largely driven by changes made in government rules and regulations with which organizations must comply in order to successfully operate in different regions of the world. Therefore, manufacturing organizations are striving hard to implement environmentally efficient supply chains while simultaneously maximizing their profit to compete in the market. To address the issue, this research studies a forward-reverse logistics model. This paper puts forward a model of a multi-period, multi-echelon, vehicle routing, forward-reverse logistics system. The network considered in the model assumes a fixed number of suppliers, facilities, distributors, customer zones, disassembly locations, re-distributors and second customer zones. The demand levels at customer zones are assumed to be deterministic. The objective of the paper is to maximize the total expected profit and also to obtain an efficient route for the vehicle corresponding to an optimal/near optimal solution. The proposed model is resolved using Artificial Immune System (AIS) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms. The findings show that for the considered model, AIS works better than the PSO. This information is important for a manufacturing organization engaged in reverse logistics programs and in running units efficiently. This paper also contributes to the limited literature on reverse logistics that considers costs and profit as well as vehicle route management

Kepentingan mata pelajaran kokurikulum di kalangan pelajar institusi pengajian tinggi: tinjauan ke atas pelajar tahun akhir Ijazah Sarjana Muda Kejuruteraan Elektrik di KUITTHO

Kajian ini dilakukan adalah untuk mengetahui kepentingan mata pelajaran kokurikulum kepada pelajar-pelajar di institusi pengajian tinggi. Di dalam kajian ini borang soal selidik telah digunakan bagi mendapatkan maklumat yang diperlukan Seramai 80 orang responden daripada pelajar tahun akhir ijazah saijana muda kejuruteraan elektrik KUiTTHO telah dipilih bagi menjalankan kajian ini. Analisis data telah dibuat dengan menggunakan kaedah Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) bagi mendapatkan nilai peratusan dan min. Hasil kajian telah menunjukkan 33.8% daripada responden melibatkan diri di dalam aktiviti kokurikulum adalah sebagai memenuhi syarat wajib yang telah ditetapkan oleh pihak KUiTTHO. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan 71.3% daripada responden lebih tertarik kepada kegiatan kokurikulum berbentuk sukan dan rekreasi. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan bahawa kebanyakan daripada responden mempunyai pandangan yang positif terhadap kepentingan melibatkan diri di dalam kegiatan kokurikulum. Namun begitu, diharapkan agar cadangan yang dikemukakan akan dapat meningkatkan lagi kesedaran di kalangan pelajar-pelajar IPT terhadap kepentingan melibatkan diri di dalam kegiatan kokurikulu

Emergency medical supplies scheduling during public health emergencies: algorithm design based on AI techniques

Based on AI technology, this study proposes a novel large-scale emergency medical supplies scheduling (EMSS) algorithm to address the issues of low turnover efficiency of medical supplies and unbalanced supply and demand point scheduling in public health emergencies. We construct a fairness index using an improved Gini coefficient by considering the demand for emergency medical supplies (EMS), actual distribution, and the degree of emergency at disaster sites. We developed a bi-objective optimisation model with a minimum Gini index and scheduling time. We employ a heterogeneous ant colony algorithm to solve the Pareto boundary based on reinforcement learning. A reinforcement learning mechanism is introduced to update and exchange pheromones among populations, with reward factors set to adjust pheromones and improve algorithm convergence speed. The effectiveness of the algorithm for a large EMSS problem is verified by comparing its comprehensive performance against a super-large capacity evaluation index. Results demonstrate the algorithm's effectiveness in reducing convergence time and facilitating escape from local optima in EMSS problems. The algorithm addresses the issue of demand differences at each disaster point affecting fair distribution. This study optimises early-stage EMSS schemes for public health events to minimise losses and casualties while mitigating emotional distress among disaster victims

Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty papers which were presented in the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY 2011 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments , held in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, from 22ndto 24thof June, 2011.The main motive of the meeting was growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, and creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily companies and their businesses. Due to this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability 2.0” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Also, the notation“2.0” is to promote the publication as a step further from our previous publication – “Business Sustainability I” – as would be for a new version of software. Concerning the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participation, in accordance with the Conference's assumed mission to promote Proactive Generative Collaborative Learning, the Conference Organisation shares/puts open to the community the papers presented in this book, as well as the papers presented on the previous Conference(s). These papers can be accessed from the conference webpage (http://labve.dps.uminho.pt/bs11). In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 107 authors from 11 countries, namely from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, and United States of America. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope, and would like, that this book to be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the third of which is planned for year 2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cost of quality and quality optimization in manufacturing

This article looks to find the optimization between the quality of manufactured products and the components of the costs of quality, including prevention cost, appraisal cost, internal failure cost and external failure cost. The results for all products, such as automobiles, appliances and electronic devices can be used. Any serious attempts to improve quality must take into account the costs associated with achieving quality, since nowadays it does not suffice to meet customer requirements, it must be done at the lowest possible cost as well. In the current business environment, management accountants and designers need tools and to develop models for decision making and planning with the reduction in quality costs of the products to provide products with high quality in order to create value for an organization. In this paper, to improve (optimize) the quality and components of the costs of quality, a kind of ant colony algorithm under the title of minimum and maximum ants system has been implemented. The current study has at least one aspect of innovation. On the international level, no research has been done in regards to the relationship between quality and the costs of quality. It was found that from a product differentiation point of view and a cost leadership point of view what component of a product best leads to the optimization of the relationship between cost of quality and quality.

Cost of quality and quality optimization in manufacturing

This article looks to find the optimization between the quality of manufactured products and the components of the costs of quality, including prevention cost, appraisal cost, internal failure cost and external failure cost. The results for all products, such as automobiles, appliances and electronic devices can be used. Any serious attempts to improve quality must take into account the costs associated with achieving quality, since nowadays it does not suffice to meet customer requirements, it must be done at the lowest possible cost as well. In the current business environment, management accountants and designers need tools and to develop models for decision making and planning with the reduction in quality costs of the products to provide products with high quality in order to create value for an organization. In this paper, to improve (optimize) the quality and components of the costs of quality, a kind of ant colony algorithm under the title of minimum and maximum ants system has been implemented. The current study has at least one aspect of innovation. On the international level, no research has been done in regards to the relationship between quality and the costs of quality. It was found that from a product differentiation point of view and a cost leadership point of view what component of a product best leads to the optimization of the relationship between cost of quality and quality.