Scheduling unit-time tasks in renewable resource constrained flowshops

In this paper we address the problem of scheduling unit time jobs in a flowshop to minimize makespan under a discrete renewable resource constraint. We propose algorithms having complexityO(n) for special cases of two machine and three machine problems. For the three machineN P-hard problem we develop a branch and bound procedure and several upper and lower bounds. We test the efficiency of the procedure and report our computational experience.Suna Kondakci was a visiting assistant professor at the Industrial Engineering Department, Purdue University, when the paper was revised.     

Assessing the benefits of remanufacturing option under one-way substitution

In this study, we consider a segmented market for a product that can either be manufactured or remanufactured. It is assumed that the remanufactured products can be substituted by the new ones. A steady-state profit model is constructed under certain environmental assumptions on capacity requirements of operations, and revenue and cost schemes. Exact steady-state probabilities of the Markovian model constructed are solved via matrix geometric techniques. An extensive computational study is performed to investigate the conditions under which the utilization of remanufacturing option and the use of one-way substitution policy increase the average expected profit.     

Scheduling under a Non-renewable Resource Constraint

This paper examines a single-machine, non-renewable-resource-constrained scheduling problem where jobs have arbitrary processing times and resource requirements. Unit supply of a resource is assumed at each time period. Performance criterion is makespan. It is proved that this problem is identical to the two-machine flowshop problem, enabling the use of Johnson's algorithm. Immediate extensions of this result are presented.     

Derivation of Generalized Camassa-Holm Equations from Boussinesq-type Equations

In this paper we derive generalized forms of the Camassa-Holm (CH) equation from a Boussinesq-type equation using a two-parameter asymptotic expansion based on two small parameters characterizing nonlinear and dispersive effects and strictly following the arguments in the asymptotic derivation of the classical CH equation. The resulting equations generalize the CH equation in two different ways. The first generalization replaces the quadratic nonlinearity of the CH equation with a general power-type nonlinearity while the second one replaces the dispersive terms of the CH equation with fractional-type dispersive terms. In the absence of both higher-order nonlinearities and fractional-type dispersive effects, the generalized equations derived reduce to the classical CH equation that describes unidirectional propagation of shallow water waves. The generalized equations obtained are compared to similar equations available in the literature, and this leads to the observation that the present equations have not appeared in the literature.     

Stability and monotonicity in newsvendor situations

This study considers a supply chain that consists of n retailers, each of them facing a newsvendor problem, and a supplier. Groups of retailers might increase their expected joint profit by joint ordering and inventory centralization. However, we assume that the retailers impose some level of stock that should be dedicated to them. In this situation, we show that the associated cooperative game has a non-empty core. Afterwards, we concentrate on a dynamic situation, where several model cost parameters and the retailers’ dedicated stock levels can change. We investigate how the profit division might be affected by these changes. We focus on four monotonicity properties. We identify several classes of games with retailers, where some of the monotonicity properties hold. Moreover, we show that pairs of cooperative games associated with newsvendor situations do not necessarily satisfy these properties in general, when changes in dedicated stock levels are in concern.     

Job Shop Scheduling under a Non-Renewable Resource Constraint

In this paper we consider the job shop scheduling problem under a discrete non-renewable resource constraint. We assume that jobs have arbitrary processing times and resource requirements and there is a unit supply of the resource at each time period. We develop an approximation algorithm for this problem and empirically test its effectiveness in finding the minimum makespan schedules.     

Modelling imperfect advance demand information and analysis of optimal inventory policies

We consider an inventory control problem where it is possible to collect some imperfect information on future demand. We refer to such information as imperfect Advance Demand Information (ADI), which may occur in different forms of applications. A simple example is a company that uses sales representatives to market its products, in which case the collection of sales representatives’ information as to the number of customers interested in a product can generate an indication about the future sales of that product, hence it constitutes imperfect ADI. Other applications include internet retailing, Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) applications and Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) environments. We develop a model that incorporates imperfect ADI with ordering decisions. Under our system settings, we show that the optimal policy is of order-up-to type, where the order level is a function of imperfect ADI. We also provide some characterizations of the optimal solution. We develop an expression for the expected cost benefits of imperfect ADI for the myopic problem. Our analytical and empirical findings reveal the conditions under which imperfect ADI is more valuable.     

A higher-order Boussinesq equation in locally non-linear theory of one-dimensional non-local elasticity

In one space dimension, a non-local elastic model is based ona single integral law, giving the stress when the strain isknown at all spatial points. In this study, we first derivea higher-order Boussinesq equation using locally non-lineartheory of 1D non-local elasticity and then we are able to showthat under certain conditions the Cauchy problem is globallywell-posed.     

Cauchy problem for a higher-order Boussinesq equation

In this study we establish global well-posedness of the Cauchy problem for a higher-order Boussinesq equation. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)