Profit-oriented disassembly-line balancing

As product and material recovery has gained importance, disassembly volumes have increased, justifying construction of disassembly lines similar to assembly lines. Recent research on disassembly lines has focused on complete disassembly. Unlike assembly, the current industry practice involves partial disassembly with profit-maximization or cost-minimization objectives. Another difference between assembly and disassembly is that disassembly involves additional precedence relations among tasks due to processing alternatives or physical restrictions. In this study, we define and solve the profit-oriented partial disassembly-line balancing problem. We first characterize different types of precedence relations in disassembly and propose a new representation scheme that encompasses all these types. We then develop the first mixed integer programming formulation for the partial disassembly-line balancing problem, which simultaneously determines (1) the parts whose demand is to be fulfilled to generate revenue, (2) the tasks that will release the selected parts under task and station costs, (3) the number of stations that will be opened, (4) the cycle time, and (5) the balance of the disassembly line, i.e. the feasible assignment of selected tasks to stations such that various types of precedence relations are satisfied. We propose a lower and upper-bounding scheme based on linear programming relaxation of the formulation. Computational results show that our approach provides near optimal solutions for small problems and is capable of solving larger problems with up to 320 disassembly tasks in reasonable time

Decentralized subcontractor scheduling with divisible jobs

Subcontracting allows manufacturer agents to reduce completion times of their jobs and thus obtain savings. This paper addresses the coordination of decentralized scheduling systems with a single subcontractor and several agents having divisible jobs. Assuming complete information, we design parametric pricing schemes that strongly coordinate this decentralized system, i.e., the agents’ choices of subcontracting intervals always result in efficient schedules. The subcontractor’s revenue under the pricing schemes depends on a single parameter which can be chosen to make the revenue as close to the total savings as required. Also, we give a lower bound on the subcontractor’s revenue for any coordinating pricing scheme. Allowing private information about processing times, we prove that the pivotal mechanism is coordinating, i.e., agents are better off by reporting their true processing times, and by participating in the subcontracting. We show that the subcontractor’s maximum revenue with any coordinating mechanism under private information equals the lower bound of that with coordinating pricing schemes under complete information. Finally, we address the asymmetric case where agents obtain savings at different rates per unit reduction in completion times. We show that coordinating pricing schemes do not always exist in this case

Source parameters and tectonic origin of the 1996 June 1 Tianzhu (M<SUB>w</SUB>=5.2) and 1995 July 21 Yongden (M<SUB>w</SUB>=5.6) earthquakes near the Haiyuan fault (Gansu, China)

International audienceThe 1996 June 1 Tianzhu (Mw=5.2, Ms=4.9) and the 1995 July 21 Yongden (Mw=5.6, Ms=5.4) earthquakes are the two largest events recorded in the last 10 years between the 1990 October 20 Ms=5.8 and the recent 2000 June 6 Ms=5.6 earthquakes near the `Tianzhu seismic gap' on the Haiyuan fault in northeastern Tibet. We use frequency-time analysis (FTAN) to extract the fundamental modes of Love and Rayleigh waves from digital records. A joint inversion of their amplitude spectra and of P-wave first-motion polarities is then performed to calculate the source parameters (focal mechanisms, depths and seismic moments) of these two Ms~=5 earthquakes. Such a joint inversion is tested for the first time. We use IRIS and GEOSCOPE network records for period ranges of 20-40s for the former event and 35-70s for the latter. The inversion of the Tianzhu earthquake yields nodal planes with strike, dip and slip of 282°, 72° and 3° and 191°, 87° and 162°, respectively, a focal depth around 12km and a seismic moment of 0.56×1017Nm, consistent with the Harvard CMT calculation, and the alignment and depths of the aftershocks recorded by a local network. We propose two possible tectonic interpretations for this off-fault event. The solution for the Yongden earthquake is consistent with a thrust, with strike, dip and slip of 105°, 45° and 75°, respectively, a focal depth around 6km and a seismic moment of 2.4×1017Nm, also in agreement with the Harvard CMT mechanism, the distribution of the aftershocks recorded by a regional network, and the general tectonic setting that we refine