Facility location, capacity acquisition and technology selection models for manufacturing strategy planning

Ankara : The Institute of Engineering and Science, Bilkent Univ., 1993.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Bilkent University, 1993.Includes bibliographical references leaves 129-141.The primary aim of this dissertation research is to contribute to the manufacturing strategy planning process. The firm is perceived as a value chain which can be represented by a production-distribution network. Structural decisions regarding the value chain of a firm are the means to implement the firm’s manufacturing strategy. Thus, development of analytical methods to aid the design of production-distribution sytems constitutes the essence of this study. The differentiating features of the manufacturing strategy planning process within the multinational companies are especially taken into account due to the significance of the globalization in product, factor, and capital markets. A review of the state-of-the-art in production-distribution system design reveals that although the evaluation of strategy alternatives received much attention, the existing analytical methods are lacking the capability to produce manufacturing strategy options. Further, it is shown that the facility location, capacity acquisition, and technology selection decisions have been dealt with separately in the literature. Whereas, the interdependencies among these structural decisions are pronounced within the international context, and hence global manufacturing strategy planning requires their simultaneous optimization. Thus, an analytical method is developed for the integration of the facility location and sizing decisions in producing a single commodity. Then, presence of product-dedicated technology alternatives in acquiring the required production capacity at each facility is incorporated. The analytical method is further extended to the multicommodity problem where product- flexible technology is also available as a technology alternative. Not only the arising models facilitate analysis of the trade-offs associated with the scale and scope economies in capacity/technology acquisition on the basis of alternative facility locations, but they also provide valuable insights regarding the presence of some dominance properties in manufacturing strategy design.Verter, VedatPh.D

Intermodal transportation of dangerous goods: a special case

Intermodal Transportation has sustained a promising growth over the past two decades and continues to be one of the rapidly growing segments of the transportation industry. Intermodal transportation is being increasing used to move dangerous goods. In this work we present an optimization model for planning and managing intermodal shipments

ODYSSEUS 2009: The 4th International Workshop on Freight Transportation and Logistics, Cesme - Izmir, Turkey, on May 26 - 29, 2009

This special issue includes some of the highest quality papers that were presented at ODYSSEUS 2009, the 4th International Workshop on Freight Transportation and Logistics. ODYSSEUS 2009 was held in Cesme–Izmir, Turkey, on May 26–29, 2009. The workshop was well attended and the Scientific Committee selected 138 papers out of 170 submissions for presentation. We received 31 submissions to this special issue, and 15 papers were selected for publication after a thorough review process. Given the wide spectrum of issues covered, we hope that this special issue will be of interest to both academics and practitioners in the field of freight transportation and logistics

A Path-Based Approach for Hazmat Transport Network Design

The people living and working around the roads used for hazardous material (hazmat) shipments face the risk of suffering undesirable consequences of an accident. The main responsibility to mitigate the hazmat transport risk at a population zone belongs to the government agency with jurisdiction over that region. One of the common policy tools is to close certain road links to vehicles carrying hazmats. In effect, the road network available to dangerous goods carriers can be determined by the regulator. The transport risk in the region, however, is determined by the carriers' routing decisions over the available road network. Thus, the regulator needs to make the road closure decisions so that the total risk resulting from the carriers' route choices is minimized. We provide a path-based formulation for this network design problem. Alternative solutions can be generated by varying the routing options included in the model for each shipment. Each solution corresponds to a certain compromise between the two parties in terms of transport risk and economic viability. The proposed framework can be used for identifying mutually agreeable hazmat transport policies. We present two applications of the methodology to illustrate the insights that can be gained through its use: The first application focuses on hazmat shipments through the highway network of Western Ontario, Canada, whereas the second application studies the problem in a much larger geographical region that covers the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.hazardous materials, transportation, network design, geographical information systems

Hazardous materials transportation

This chapter describes how the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) defines a hazardous material as any substance or material capable of causing harm to people, property, and the environment. Dependence on hazardous materials is a fact of life in industrialized societies. There are thousands of different hazardous materials in use today. The United Nations sorts hazardous materials into nine classes according to their physical, chemical, and nuclear properties: explosives and pyrotechnics; gases; flammable and combustible liquids; flammable, combustible, and dangerous-when-wet solids; oxidizers and organic peroxides; poisonous and infectious materials; radioactive materials; corrosive materials; and miscellaneous dangerous goods, such as hazardous wastes. This first section of the chapter describes how the transportation of hazmats can be classified according to the mode of transport, namely; road, rail, water, air, and pipeline. The next section offers a high-level view of hazmat logistics literature. Section 3 contains a treatment of risk, the main ingredient of hazmat logistics problems that separate them from other logistics problems and section 4 deals with hazmat routing and scheduling problems. Section 5 focuses on models that combine undesirable facility location and hazmat transportation. The final section offers a critique of the existing literature and suggests directions for future research. Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo