A two-level hedging point policy for controlling a manufacturing system with time-delay,demand uncertainty and extra capacity

This paper focuses on the production control of a manufacturing system with time-delay, demand uncertainty and extra capacity. Time-delay is a typical feature of networked manufacturing systems (NMS), because an NMS is composed of many manufacturing systems with transportation channels among them and the transportation of materials needs time. Besides this, for a manufacturing system in an NMS, the uncertainty of the demand from its downstream manufacturing system is considered; and it is assumed that there exist two-levels of demand rates, i.e., the normal one and the higher one, and that the time between the switching of demand rates are exponentially distributed. To avoid the backlog of demands, it is also assumed that extra production capacity can be used when the work-in-process (WIP) cannot buffer the high-level demands rate. For such a manufacturing system with time-delay, demand uncertainty and extra capacity, the mathematical model for its production control problem is established, with the objective of minimizing the mean costs for WIP inventory and occupation of extra production capacity. To solve the problem, a two-level hedging point policy is proposed. By analyzing the probability distribution of system states, optimal values of the two hedging levels are obtained. Finally, numerical experiments are done to verify the effectiveness of the control policy and the optimality of the hedging levels.     

Multi-criteria decision aid for the formulation of sustainable technological energy priorities using linguistic variables

Implementation of new and innovative energy technologies is a key mean towards a sustainable energy system. Currently, governments have to decide from an increasingly diverse mix of them, the ones which warrant support, including funding and other incentives for private sector efforts. However, appraising energy technologies in terms of their sustainability is a really complex task, considering the series of uncertainties and implications that have to be encountered so as to obtain realistic and transparent results. In this context, the main aim of this paper is to present a direct and flexible multi-criteria decision making approach, using linguistic variables, to assist policy makers in formulating sustainable technological energy priorities. Furthermore, its software realization will be applied to a number of technologies, in the context of the Greek Technology Foresight Programme, and the results will be presented and discussed.     

OPTIMAL IMPULSIVE CONTROL IN COMPETITIVE SYSTEM

In this paper,the impulsive exploitation of two species periodic competitive system is considered.First,we show that this type of system with impulsive har- vesting has a unique positive periodic solution,which is globally asymptotically stable.Further,by choosing the maximum total revenues as the management objective,we investigate the optimal harvesting policies for periodic competi- tive system with impulsive harvesting.Finally,we obtain the optimal time to harvest and optimal population level.     

On optimal polling policies

In a single-server polling system, the server visits the queues according to a routing policy and while at a queue, serves some or all of the customers there according to a service policy. A polling (or scheduling) policy is a sequence of decisions on whether to serve a customer, idle the server, or switch the server to another queue. The goal of this paper is to find polling policies that stochastically minimize the unfinished work and the number of customers in the system at all times. This optimization problem is decomposed into three subproblems: determine the optimal action (i.e., serve, switch, idle) when the server is at a nonempty queue; determine the optimal action (i.e., switch, idle) when the server empties a queue; determine the optimal routing (i.e., choice of the queue) when the server decides to switch. Under fairly general assumptions, we show for the first subproblem that optimal policies are greedy and exhaustive, i.e., the server should neither idle nor switch when it is at a nonempty queue. For the second subproblem, we prove that in symmetric polling systems patient policies are optimal, i.e., the server should stay idling at the last visited queue whenever the system is empty. When the system is slotted, we further prove that non-idling and impatient policies are optimal. For the third subproblem, we establish that in symmetric polling systems optimal policies belong to the class of Stochastically Largest Queue (SLQ) policies. An SLQ policy is one that never routes the server to a queue known to have a queue length that is stochastically smaller than that of another queue. This result implies, in particular, that the policy that routes the server to the queue with the largest queue length is optimal when all queue lengths are known and that the cyclic routing policy is optimal in the case that the only information available is the previous decisions.This work was supported in part by NSF under Contract ASC-8802764.     

货币政策宏观调控的一类大系统模型

本文以货币政策工具调控货币供应量为重点，结合我国货币政策传导机制和目前的经济和金融体制，在定量研究货币政策工具、中介目标和最终目标三者之间关系的基础上，建立了一个货币政策宏观调控的动态大系统模型．应用大系统共态预估法构造了此模型的最优控制算法，并利用比较静态分析方法研究了货币政策的非中立性．最后运用本模型就近期因法定存款准备金率和利率下调对货币供给量的影响进行了实例分析．     

A note on a single-vendor and multiple-buyers production-inventory policy for a deteriorating item

In this note we examine the total cost function of a single-vendor multiple-buyers production-inventory policy for a deteriorating item by Yang and Wee [P.C. Yang and H.M. Wee, A single-vendor multiple-buyers production-inventory policy for a deteriorating item, European Journal of Operational Research 143 (2002) 570–581]. Two possible flaws in the cost function of Wee and Yang’s model are pointed out. A proposal to eradicate the flaws is given.     

Joint pricing and inventory control with a Markovian demand model

We consider the joint pricing and inventory control problem for a single product over a finite horizon and with periodic review. The demand distribution in each period is determined by an exogenous Markov chain. Pricing and ordering decisions are made at the beginning of each period and all shortages are backlogged. The surplus costs as well as fixed and variable costs are state dependent. We show the existence of an optimal (s, S, p)-type feedback policy for the additive demand model. We extend the model to the case of emergency orders. We compute the optimal policy for a class of Markovian demand and illustrate the benefits of dynamic pricing over fixed pricing through numerical examples. The results indicate that it is more beneficial to implement dynamic pricing in a Markovian demand environment with a high fixed ordering cost or with high demand variability.     

Effects of pollution restrictions on dynamic investment policy of a firm

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of different pollution standards on the firm's resource allocation decisions. To do so, a dynamic model of the firm is developed in which it is assumed that production causes pollution as an inevitable byproduct. Concerning its investment policy, we suppose that the firm can choose between investing in productive capital goods and investing in abatement efforts.It is shown that, in some cases, future abatement expenses have a negative impact on the present level of productive investment, even if the pollution standard is not binding at the moment. This implies a really dynamic optimal investment policy for the firm, which cannot be obtained within a comparative static analysis.This research has been made possible by a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Comments by Frank van der Duyn Schouten and Piet Verheyen (Tilburg University) and by Raymond Gradus (Dutch Ministry of Finance, The Hague) are gratefully acknowledged.     

Positioning of new brands in an experiment

This paper deals with an experimental investigation of positioning new brands. For this purpose, a management game was carried out with students. The brands introduced in the cause of the game were analysed in respect to their positions in a two-dimensional feature space. We try to find out which of the two strategies, niche policy and imitation, is more frequently used in complex decision situations and if there is a difference in profits. Furthermore, we want to find out, whether differences of prices and advertising exist in our experiment depending on the positioning strategy used.