6 research outputs found
A MIXED INTEGER LINEAR PROGRAMMING APPROACH FOR DEVELOPING SALARY ADMINISTRATION SYSTEMS
Determining salary increases of executive personnel is a challenging decision process for many companies. Salary administration policies that aid in the determination of salary increases and other compensation benefits have a wide variety of advantages for both a company and its employees. This thesis develops a mathematical programming approach to create a salary administration system that recognizes the importance of performance and potential of employees for future promotions as major components of a salary increase policy for executive personnel. A number of companies all over the world use salary administration systems that integrate work performance and potential for advancement to develop compensation packages that include benefits in addition to the base salary of their executive personnel. Some of these systems aid decision making concerning salary increase percentages, frequency of salary increases, and guidelines for promotion. The specific policy considered in this thesis assigns salary increase categories and intervals between successive salary increases based on performance and potential assessments. Two mixed integer linear programming models are formulated to assign personnel to salary increase categories and to determine intervals. Solution procedures are clearly illustrated based on a hypothetical application. The optimization toolbox of the commercial software, MATLAB, is used as the problem solver
Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment Location and Capacity Allocation for Fixed-Route Networks
Electric vehicle (EV) supply equipment location and allocation (EVSELCA)
problems for freight vehicles are becoming more important because of the
trending electrification shift. Some previous works address EV charger location
and vehicle routing problems simultaneously by generating vehicle routes from
scratch. Although such routes can be efficient, introducing new routes may
violate practical constraints, such as drive schedules, and satisfying
electrification requirements can require dramatically altering existing routes.
To address the challenges in the prevailing adoption scheme, we approach the
problem from a fixed-route perspective. We develop a mixed-integer linear
program, a clustering approach, and a metaheuristic solution method using a
genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the EVSELCA problem. The clustering approach
simplifies the problem by grouping customers into clusters, while the GA
generates solutions that are shown to be nearly optimal for small problem
cases. A case study examines how charger costs, energy costs, the value of time
(VOT), and battery capacity impact the cost of the EVSELCA. Charger costs were
found to be the most significant component in the objective function, with an
80\% decrease resulting in a 25\% cost reduction. VOT costs decrease
substantially as energy costs increase. The number of fast chargers increases
as VOT doubles. Longer EV ranges decrease total costs up to a certain point,
beyond which the decrease in total costs is negligible
A Time-Constrained Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem in Urban E-Commerce Delivery
Electric vehicle routing problems can be particularly complex when recharging
must be performed mid-route. In some applications such as the e-commerce parcel
delivery truck routing, however, mid-route recharging may not be necessary
because of constraints on vehicle capacities and maximum allowed time for
delivery. In this study, we develop a mixed-integer optimization model that
exactly solves such a time-constrained capacitated vehicle routing problem,
especially of interest to e-commerce parcel delivery vehicles. We compare our
solution method with an existing metaheuristic and carry out exhaustive case
studies considering four U.S. cities -- Austin, TX; Bloomington, IL; Chicago,
IL; and Detroit, MI -- and two vehicle types: conventional vehicles and battery
electric vehicles (BEVs). In these studies we examine the impact of vehicle
capacity, maximum allowed travel time, service time (dwelling time to
physically deliver the parcel), and BEV range on system-level performance
metrics including vehicle miles traveled (VMT). We find that the service time
followed by the vehicle capacity plays a key role in the performance of our
approach. We assume an 80-mile BEV range as a baseline without mid-route
recharging. Our results show that BEV range has a minimal impact on performance
metrics because the VMT per vehicle averages around 72 miles. In a case study
for shared-economy parcel deliveries, we observe that VMT could be reduced by
38.8\% in Austin if service providers were to operate their distribution
centers jointly
Redesigning Large-Scale Multimodal Transit Networks with Shared Autonomous Mobility Services
Public transit systems have faced challenges and opportunities from emerging
Shared Autonomous Mobility Services (SAMS). This study addresses a city-scale
multimodal transit network design problem, with shared autonomous vehicles as
both transit feeders and a direct interzonal mode. The framework captures
spatial demand and modal characteristics, considers intermodal transfers and
express services, determines transit infrastructure investment and path flows,
and designs transit routes. A system-optimal multimodal transit network is
designed with minimum total door-to-door generalized costs of users and
operators, while satisfying existing transit origin-destination demand within a
pre-set infrastructure budget. Firstly, the geography, demand, and modes in
each clustered zone are characterized with continuous approximation. Afterward,
the decisions of network link investment and multimodal path flows in zonal
connection optimization are formulated as a minimum-cost multi-commodity
network flow (MCNF) problem and solved efficiently with a mixed-integer linear
programming (MILP) solver. Subsequently, the route generation problem is solved
by expanding the MCNF formulation to minimize intramodal transfers. To
demonstrate the framework efficiency, this study uses transit demand from the
Chicago metropolitan area to redesign a multimodal transit network. The
computational results present savings in travelers' journey time and operators'
costs, demonstrating the potential benefits of collaboration between multimodal
transit systems and SAMS.Comment: 44 pages, 15 figures, under review for the 25th International
Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT25
Large-Scale Dynamic Ridesharing with Iterative Assignment
Transportation network companies (TNCs) have become a highly utilized
transportation mode over the past years. At their emergence, TNCs were serving
ride requests one by one. However, the economic and environmental benefits of
ridesharing encourages them to dynamically pool multiple ride requests to
enable people to share vehicles. In a dynamic ridesharing (DRS) system, a fleet
operator seeks to minimize the overall travel cost while a rider desires to
experience a faster (and cheaper) service. While the DRS may provide relatively
cheaper trips by pooling requests, the service speed is contingent on the
objective of the vehicle-to-rider assignments. Moreover, the operator must
quickly assign a vehicle to requests to prevent customer loss. In this study we
develop an iterative assignment (IA) algorithm with a balanced objective to
conduct assignments quickly. A greedy algorithm from the literature is also
tailored to further reduce the computational time. The IA was used to measure
the impact on service quality of fleet size; assignment frequency; the weight
control parameter of the two objectives on vehicle occupancy -- rider wait time
and vehicle hours traveled. A case study in Austin, TX, reveals that the key
performance metrics are the most sensitive to the weight parameter in the
objective function
Economic Feasibility of Adopting Additive Manufacturing for Low-volume Demand
Additive manufacturing (also known as 3-D printing) is in its infancy. Although 3D-printers have been long existed as an alternative manufacturing technology to the conventional manufacturing (casting, molding, etc.), they were being used to prototype products rapidly hence the technology was referred to rapid prototyping. Recently, the AM technology has been adopted by enterprises to source low-volume demand products, such as spare parts and obsolete parts. Although the economical benefits of the technology for such products have not been theoretically measured, many enterprises started to adopt the technology. Under this research framework, we partially fill the gap in the literature and propose mathematical models and their sound solution methods to address the economic feasibility of AM adoption for low-volume demand. To this end, we first focus on a single enterprise and propose a mathematical model to determine the optimal amount of investment by partitioning products into two sourcing options, namely, AM option and inventory option. Then, we extend our research to answer more questions for a multi-facility enterprise. In this extended version, we determine the optimal location to deploy AM capacity while still assessing the viability and extent of the investment. Our study contributes to the literature by providing a generally applicable solution approach to mixed integer non-linear programs involving queueing non- linearity. On the other hand, we present useful managerial insights to aid practitioners in decision-making about AM adoption