Operations research in the public sector and nonprofit organizations

Public sector and nonprofit organizations (NPO) have been growing substantially in number and size since the turn of the millennium. In light of the ongoing economic crises these sectors are expected to grow even more with expanded demands for services, increased need for funds to meet the demands and need for their services, and increased pressure to use available funds efficiently and effectively. The purpose of operations research (OR) techniques is to improve organizations’ operations and achievements. We are pleased to include in this volume a group of high quality research papers, innovative case studies with OR applications to the public sector and NPO, all focusing on the objective of improving operations and achievements.     

A micro-economic perspective on manager selection in nonprofit organizations

This paper recognizes that individuals working in the nonprofit sector can have different motives and investigates which type of manager nonprofit organizations should best employ. It first considers a situation in which the manager is allowed to attract only one employee and later extends the analysis to a situation in which up to three employees can be employed. Analyses mark the importance of a strong commitment to the organization’s mission and caution for both a strong self-interest and a strong devotion to the well-being of the clients. Managers with a moderate interest in their own objectives can nevertheless be valuable to the organization. The paper also marks why managers should avoid similar-to-me biases in the selection process and investigates the effects of an increased work pressure on the behavior of the managers and on the attainment of the organizational goals.     

A deterministic linear optimization model for allocating schools to zones

This paper presents a deterministic linear optimization model to support decisions on optimal allocation of schools to zones, its characterization and assignment of students, maximizing the social benefits of school owners and students. Students are assumed to show a multi-attribute behaviour, considering as important not only location, as is usual in the literature, but also quality of education and infrastructure, school costs and other attributes. There is heterogeneity of supply and demand. Students are classified by place of residence and socio-economic characteristics. Schools can be private, subsidized or free municipal ones. The model developed is applied to data of one of the municipalities of Santiago. The results obtained under different scenarios tend to confirm the expected demand's behaviour. This model could be used to guide decisions of both school owners or municipalities as well as students towards an equilibrium closer to a social optimum.     

Optimal budget for system design series network DEA model

Wei and Chang (2011a) developed optimal system design (OSD) data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to design a decision-making unit (DMU)’s optimal system, in which the DMU could encounter the well-known economic phenomenon of budget congestion. To show how to verify the optimal budget and budget congestion, they develop a solution method. In this paper, we note that their method is incorrect for the OSD network DEA model in general. A new approach is developed to derive the DMU’s corresponding optimal budgets and to check for the existence of budget congestion not only for the OSD DEA models but also for the OSD network DEA models. In addition, the proposed approach is computationally economical. Finally, two numerical examples are used to illustrate the proposed approach.     

A multilevel polyhierarchical model for designing management systems for organizations

The study of the methodology of computer-aided DIAgnostic ANAlysis and design of management systems (DIANA) has been in progress at the Systems Research Institute for many years. The most significant element of this methodology is a formal model of an organization under investigation. Computer implementation of such a model has turned out to be a very difficult problem. The paper presents an attempt at solving it.     

An operational profit sharing and transfer pricing model for network-manufacturing companies

New age companies are forging partnerships with other firms to market products that have been assembled through manufacturing activities distributed at different locations. These locations belong to more than one company and the product passes through these different sites during its manufacturing stages. This manufacturing collaboration is known as network-manufacturing. According to the network philosophy, companies form alliances to manufacture a product and share in its operating profits. This paper proposes a framework and methodology for profit sharing and transfer-pricing between network companies. We propose a paradigm that enables maximization of operating profits by the manufacturing-network in its larger supply chain, suggesting a departure from the model that maximizes profits for the individual company within the sphere of its own supply chain.     

Quadratic harvesting dominated optimal strategy for a stochastic single-species model

A stochastic population model with the mixed harvesting strategy is formulated and studied in this paper. Sufficient and necessary conditions for survival of the species are derived firstly. Then, based on the ergodic stationary distribution, the optimal strategy is identified. Results show that the linear harvesting effort threatens to the survival of the species; the quadratic harvesting strategy occupies an absolute advantage in the harvesting and excludes the linear part out of the optimal harvesting strategy. It''s interest to see all these occur only in the random environments. Computer simulations are carried out to support the obtained results.     

A new modified resource budget model for nonlinear dynamics in citrus production

Alternate bearing or masting is a general yield variability phenomenon in perennial tree crops. This paper first presents a theoretical modeling and simulation study of the mechanism for this dynamics in citrus, and then provides a test of the proposed models using data from a previous 16-year experiment in a citrus orchard. Our previous studies suggest that the mutual effects between vegetative and reproductive growths caused by resource allocation and budgeting in plant body might be considered as a major factor responsible for the yield oscillations in citrus. Based on the resource budget model proposed by Isagi et al. (J Theor Biol. 1997;187:231-9), we first introduce the new leaf growth as a major energy consumption component into the model. Further, we introduce a nonlinear Ricker-type equation to replace the linear relationship between costs for flowering and fruiting used in Isagi's model. Model simulations demonstrate that the proposed new models can successfully simulate the reproductive behaviors of citrus trees with different fruiting dynamics. These results may enrich the mechanical dynamics in tree crop reproductive models and help us to better understand the dynamics of vegetative-reproductive growth interactions in a real environment.     

Developing a step-by-step effectiveness assessment model for customer-oriented service organizations

Effectiveness involves more than simple efficiency, which is limited to the production process assessment of peer operational units. Effectiveness incorporates variables that are both controllable (i.e. efficiency) and non-controllable (i.e. perceived quality) by the operational units. It is a fundamental driver for the success of either a for-profit or a non-for-profit unit in a competitive environment that is customer/citizen- and goal-oriented. Additionally, with respect to the short-run production constraints, i.e. the resources available and controllable by the operational units, and the legal status, we go beyond the traditional effectiveness assessment techniques by developing a Modified or “rational” Quality-driven-Efficiency-adjusted Data Envelopment Analysis (MQE-DEA) model. This particular model provides in the short run a feasible effectiveness attainment path for every disqualified unit in order to meet high-perceived quality and high-efficiency standards. By applying the MQE-DEA model a new production equilibrium is determined, which is different from the equilibrium suggested by the mainstream microeconomic theory, in that it takes into account not only the need for operational efficiency but also the customer-driven market dynamics.     

COMPASS—the verification and validation of an operational analysis model for use in the prediction of Nimrod MRA4 operational effectiveness

Comprehensive Maritime Patrol Aircraft Systems Simulation (COMPASS) is a mathematical model of the Nimrod MRA4 weapon system that is being developed to enable the prediction of operational effectiveness. COMPASS will be used throughout the Nimrod MRA4's development life cycle to conduct tactics development and weapon system performance evaluation. Following Nimrod MRA4's entry into service, the COMPASS model may be used by the customer, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), to assess operational effectiveness of potential system upgrades and to evaluate the effect of changes to the threat or operating environment. BAE SYSTEMS is developing tactical scenarios to test operational performance. The operational requirement is decomposed, at the highest practicable system level, into metrics that can be measured easily under test or trials conditions. Having quantified a system's capabilities in these lower level metrics, COMPASS can be modified to reflect them accurately. COMPASS uses these tactical scenarios to simulate the Nimrod MRA4 undertaking a number of Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Anti Surface Unit Warfare (ASuW) activities. This paper describes the philosophy and process being applied to the development of a fully verified and validated COMPASS mathematical model. It also details the approach to using COMPASS to determine Nimrod MRA4 operational effectiveness through the construction of tactical scenarios.     

Community operational research issues and public art practice: the art director system

The key issues of community operational research, outlined in a paper by Ritchie, have relevance to community projects in general and, we argue, a particular relevance to public art. We illustrate this relevance by describing eight case studies in public art, four in Japan and four in the west, and by considering the projects in a three-way factorial design, make a case for the art director system in the management of public art projects.     

A two-stage stochastic program for scheduling and allocating cross-trained workers

A two-stage stochastic program is developed for scheduling and allocating cross-trained workers in a multi-department service environment with random demands. The first stage corresponds to scheduling days-off over a time horizon such as a week or month. The second stage is the recourse action that deals with allocating available workers at the beginning of a day to accommodate realized demands. After the general two-stage model is formulated, a special case is introduced for computational testing. The testing helps quantify the value of cross-training as a function of problem characteristics. Results show that cross-training can be more valuable than perfect information, especially when demand uncertainty is high.     

求解带二次约束的非凸二次规划的一种分支定界算法

本文提出了一种求解带二次约束和线性约束的二次规划的分支定界算法.在算法中,我们运用Lipschitz条件来确定目标函数和约束函数的在每个n矩形上的上下界,对于n矩形的分割,我们采用选择n矩形最长边的二分法,同时我们采用了一些矩形删除技术,在不大幅增加计算量的前提下,起到了加速算法收敛的效果.从理论上我们证明了算法的收敛性,同时数值实验表明该算法是有效的.     

A hierarchical location model for public facility planning

In this article, we present a discrete hierarchical location model for public facility planning. The main features of the model are: an accessibility maximization objective; several levels of demand and of facilities; a nested hierarchy of facilities (i.e. a facility of a given level can serve demand of equal and lower levels); maximum and minimum capacity constraints; and user-to-facility assignment constraints. The latter include single-assignment and closest-assignment constraints, as well as a new type of constraints called path-assignment constraints. Their purpose is to enforce some desirable properties for the spatial pattern of assignments. If they are not included, model solutions are difficult to interpret and to explain in a public facility planning context, therefore being less likely to be accepted by the users. The usefulness of the model is illustrated through a real-world application to school network planning.     

Choosing best alliance partners and allocating optimal alliance resources using the fuzzy multi-objective dummy programming model

Synergy effects are the motives to enter into strategic alliances; however due to lack of adequate preparation or planning, these alliances often fail. It is of no doubt that a successful strategic alliance depends on choosing the correct alliance partners and appropriate resource allocation. In this paper, the fuzzy multi-objective dummy programming model is proposed to overcome the above-mentioned problems. Two types of strategic alliances, joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), are demonstrated to choose the best alliance partners and allocate the optimal alliance resources in a numerical example. Based on the results, our method can provide the optimal alliance cluster and satisfaction in strategic alliances.     

解带有二次约束非凸二次规划问题的一个分枝缩减方法

在这篇论文里,有机地把外逼近方法与分枝定界技术结合起来,提出了解带有二次约束非凸二次规划问题的一个分枝缩减方法;给出了原问题的一个新的线性规划松弛,以便确定它在超矩形上全局最优值的一个下界;利用超矩形的一个深度二级剖分方法,以及超矩形的缩减和删除技术,提高算法的收敛速度;证明了在知道原问题可行点的条件下,该算法在有限步里就可以获得原问题的一个全局最优化解,并且用一个例子说明了该算法是有效的.     

Stochastic models for strategic resource allocation in nonprofit foreclosed housing acquisitions

Increased rates of mortgage foreclosures in the U.S. have had devastating social and economic impacts during and after the 2008 financial crisis. As part of the response to this problem, nonprofit organizations such as community development corporations (CDCs) have been trying to mitigate the negative impacts of mortgage foreclosures by acquiring and redeveloping foreclosed properties. We consider the strategic resource allocation decisions for these organizations which involve budget allocations to different neighborhoods under cost and return uncertainty. Based on interactions with a CDC, we develop stochastic integer programming based frameworks for this decision problem, and assess the practical value of the models by using real-world data. Both policy-related and computational analyses are performed, and several insights such as the trade-offs between different objectives, and the efficiency of different solution approaches are presented.     

Publicity vs. impact in nonprofit disclosures and donor preferences: a sequential game with one nonprofit organization and N donors

Charitable giving is one of the essential tasks of a properly functioning civil society. This task is greatly complicated by the lack of organizational transparency and by the information asymmetries that often exist between organizations and donors in the market for charitable donations. The disclosure of financial, performance, donor-relations, and fundraising-related data is thus an important tool for nonprofit organizations attempting to attract greater donations while boosting accountability and public trust. There are, however, varying payoffs associated with such disclosure depending on the nature of donor preferences and the relative openness and effectiveness of competing organizations. To help understand the interplay between nonprofit organizational disclosures and individual donations, we present a novel game-theoretic model of disclosure–donation interactions that incorporates the predominant forms of both donor preferences and “value-relevant” information.