Production planning with discounting and stochastic demands

A general continuous review production planning problem with stochastic demand is considered. Conditions under which the stochastic problem may be correctly solved using an equivalent deterministic problem are developed. This deterministic problem is known to have the same solution as the stochastic problem. Moreover, conditions are established under which the deterministic equivalent problem differs from a commonly used deterministic approximation to the problem only in the interest rate used in discounting. Thus, solving the stochastic problem is no more difficult than solving a commonly used approximation of the problem.     

基于动态VaR约束与随机波动率模型的最优投资策略

研究Stein-Stein随机波动率模型下带动态VaR约束的最优投资组合选择问题. 假设投资者的目标是最大化终端财富的期望幂效用,可投资于无风险资产和一种风险资产, 风险资产的价格过程由Stein-Stein随机波动率模型刻画. 同时, 投资者期望能在投资过程中利用动态VaR约束控制所面对的风险.运用Bellman动态规划方法和Lagrange乘子法, 得到了该约束问题最优策略的解析式及特殊情形下最优值函数的解析式; 并通过理论分析和数值算例, 阐述了动态VaR约束与随机波动率对最优投资策略的影响.     

Marketable permits in a stochastic dynamic model of the firm

This contribution attempts to determine the effects of environmental regulation on the growth of an individual firm. Here, it is assumed that the firm revenue is stochastic. The government tries to reduce pollution by creating a market on which the firm has to buy permits in order to be allowed to pollute the environment.Pollution is an inevitable byproduct of the firm production process, and in our model the firm is offered two ways to deal with it. The first is to buy marketable permits, and the second is to clean up pollution which can be achieved through investing in abatement capital stock.It turns out that the firm optimal trajectory consists of at most seven different policies. They can be depicted in a feedback diagram from which we can conclude that, provided that the firm never faces a shortage of cash, productive and abatement capital stocks ultimately reach their equilibrium levels where marginal revenue equals marginal costs.This paper was presented at EURO XIII, July 19–22, 1994 in Glasgow, Scotland. The research of the second author has been made possible by a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Thanks are due to M. Stimming for valuable comments and suggestions and to A. Van Den Elzen for his corrections.     

A stochastic programming model for aggregate production planning

This paper looks at a problem of production planning at the level of the work centre, rather than of the individual machine. The approach is based on methodology which combines aspects of decision analysis with mathematical programming procedures.A model is developed which can take into account various real life factors in the planning phase, including delaying production, and the probability of production being scrapped, or of extra work being required. An extension to the multiple objective situation is outlined, and some computational results are reported.     

A stochastic recirculation system with random access

A model for a stochastic recirculation system with randomly accessed multiple heterogeneous servers, no waiting rooms, and exponentially-distributed service times is provided. In this system the units are assigned to one of the servers upon arrival by random mechanism. Units which find all servers busy recirculate and combine with the incoming arrivals and join those already in the system to initiate the next cycle. The equilibrium behavior of the internal and external stochastic processes of the system is analyzed using a two parameter approximation. A simulation model is also developed and its behavior is compared against the analytical model at the steady state. The model with randomly-accessed servers is compared to a single server model already established in the literature. The performance of the model is then examined for a wide range of parameter values to obtain conclusions about its optimal performances.     

Competitive production scheduling: A two-firm,noncooperative finite dynamic game

In this paper, we study the production scheduling problem in a competitive environment. Two firms produce the same product and compete in a market. The demand is random and so is the production capacity of each firm, due to random breakdowns. We consider a finite planning horizon. The scheduling problem is formulated as a finite dynamic game. Algorithms are developed to determine the security, hazard, and Nash policies. Numerical examples are discussed. A single-firm optimization model is also analyzed and it is observed that the production control policy from the single-firm optimization model may not perform well in a competitive environment.     

A stochastic optimal control approach to a class of production and inventory problems

A comprehensible and unified system control approach is presented to solve a class of production/inventory smoothing problems. A nonstationary, non-Gaussian, finite-time linear optimal solution with an attractive computation scheme is obtained for a general quadratic and linear cost structure. A complete solution to a classical production/inventory control problem is given as an example. A general solution to the discrete-time optimal regulator with arbitrary but known disturbance is provided and discussed in detail. A computationally attractive closed-loop suboptimal scheme is presented for problems with constraints or nonquadratic costs. Implementation and interpretation of the results are discussed.     

Some analysis of a stochastic logistic growth model

We derive several new results on a well-known stochastic logistic equation. For the martingale case, we compute the distribution of the solution, mean passage times, and the distribution of hitting times, all in closed form. For the case of constant coefficients, we also find mean passage times and for the general equation we give the weak solution expressed in terms of stochastic quadratures. We also show how these quadratures may be considerably simplified using the results for the martingale case. As it turns out, the martingale case has a particularly elegant weak solution, and to a large degree its structure carries over to the general case.     

Robust production planning in a manufacturing environment with random yield: A case in sawmill production planning

This paper addresses a multi-period, multi-product sawmill production planning problem where the yields of processes are random variables due to non-homogeneous quality of raw materials (logs). In order to determine the production plans with robust customer service level, robust optimization approach is applied. Two robust optimization models with different variability measures are proposed, which can be selected based on the tradeoff between the expected backorder/inventory cost and the decision maker risk aversion level about the variability of customer service level. The implementation results of the proposed approach for a realistic-scale sawmill example highlights the significance of using robust optimization in generating more robust production plans in the uncertain environments compared with stochastic programming.     

A stochastic decision model with vector-valued reward

In this note we consider a non-stationary stochastic decision model with vector-valued reward. Based on Pareto-optimality we define the maximal total reward as a set of vector valued total rewards, which have not a successor with respect to the underlying partially order relation. The principle of optimality is derived. Using the well-known von-Neumann-Morgenstern-property we formulate a Bellman-equation, which consists in a system of iterative set relations.     

Linear programming with stochastic processes as parameters as applied to production planning

In formulating stochastic programming with recourse models, the parameters of the linear programs are usually assumed to be random variables with known distributions. In this paper, the requirement vector parameter is assumed to be a stochastic process { _i (t),tT,i=1,...,m}. The properties of the deterministic equivalents for the cases of the discrete and continuous index setT are derived. The results of the paper are applied to a multi-item production planning model with continuous (periodic) review of the stock on hand of various items.     

An integrated production and preventive maintenance planning model

We are given a set of items that must be produced in lots on a capacitated production system throughout a specified finite planning horizon. We assume that the production system is subject to random failures, and that any maintenance action carried out on the system, in a period, reduces the system’s available production capacity during that period. The objective is to find an integrated lot-sizing and preventive maintenance strategy of the system that satisfies the demand for all items over the entire horizon without backlogging, and which minimizes the expected sum of production and maintenance costs. We show how this problem can be formulated and solved as a multi-item capacitated lot-sizing problem on a system that is periodically renewed and minimally repaired at failure. We also provide an illustrative example that shows the steps to obtain an optimal integrated production and maintenance strategy.     

A global existence and uniqueness result for a stochastic Allen–Cahn equation with constraint

This paper addresses the analysis of a time noise‐driven Allen–Cahn equation modelling the evolution of damage in continuum media in the presence of stochastic dynamics. The nonlinear character of the equation is mainly due to a multivoque maximal monotone operator representing a constraint on the damage variable, which is forced to take physically admissible values. By a Yosida approximation and a time‐discretization procedure, we prove a result of global‐in‐time existence and uniqueness of the solution to the stochastic problem. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一类状态受限的随机延迟最优控制问题的最大值原理

本文考虑一类状态受限的随机延迟最优控制问题,其中控制域为凸集且扩散项系数中含有控制变量.控制域可以是无界集合.用最大值原理方法建立了最优控制满足的必要条件.也给出了充分最优性条件,从而有助于找到最优控制.     

Integrated cellular manufacturing systems design with production planning and dynamic system reconfiguration

This paper presents and analyzes a comprehensive model for the design of cellular manufacturing systems (CMS). A recurring theme in research is a piecemeal approach when formulating CMS models. In this paper, the proposed model, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the most comprehensive one to date with a more integrated approach to CMS design, where production planning and system reconfiguration decisions are incorporated. Such a CMS model has not been proposed before and it features the presence of alternate process routings, operation sequence, duplicate machines, machine capacity and lot splitting. The developed model is a mixed integer non-linear program. Linearization procedures are proposed to convert it into a linearized mixed integer programming formulation. Computational results are presented by solving some numerical examples, extracted from the existing literature, with the linearized formulation.     

Optimal selection of process mean for a stochastic inventory model

It is very common to assume deterministic demand in the literature of integrated targeting – inventory models. However, if variability in demand is high, there may be significant disruptions from using the deterministic solution in probabilistic environment. Thus, the model would not be applicable to real world situations and adjustment must be made. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for integrated targeting – inventory problem when the demand is a random variable. In particular, the proposed model jointly determines the optimal process mean, lot size and reorder point in (Q, R) continuous review model. In order to investigate the effect of uncertainty in demand, the proposed model is compared with three baseline cases. The first of which considers a hierarchical model where the producer determines the process mean and lot-sizing decisions separately. This hierarchical model is used to show the effect of integrating the process targeting with production/inventory decisions. Another baseline case is the deterministic demand case which is used to show the effect of variation in demand on the optimal solution. The last baseline case is for the situation where the variation in the filling amount is negligible. This case demonstrates the sensitivity of the total cost with respect to the variation in the process output. Also, a procedure is developed to determine the optimal solution for the proposed models. Empirical results show that ignoring randomness in the demand pattern leads to underestimating the expected total cost. Moreover, the results indicate that performance of a process can be improved significantly by reducing its variation.     

Imprecise parameters for near-optimal control of stochastic SIV epidemic model

The change of parameters may influence the dynamic behaviors of epidemic diseases. Biological system parameters can also be changed due to diverse uncertainties such as lack of data and errors in the statistical approach. The problem of how to define and decide the optimal-control strategies of epidemic diseases with imprecise parameters deserves further researches. The paper presents a stochastic susceptible, infected, and vaccinated (SIV) system that includes imprecise parameters. Firstly, we give the method of parameter estimates of the SIV model. Then, by using Ekeland's principle and Hamiltonian function, we obtain the sufficient conditions and necessary conditions of near-optimal control of the SIV epidemic model with imprecise parameters. At last, numerical examples prove our theoretical results.     

A robust optimization model for multi-product two-stage capacitated production planning under uncertainty

Production planning (PP) is one of the most important issues carried out in manufacturing environments which seeks efficient planning, scheduling and coordination of all production activities that optimizes the company’s objectives. In this paper, we studied a two-stage real world capacitated production system with lead time and setup decisions in which some parameters such as production costs and customer demand are uncertain. A robust optimization model is developed to formulate the problem in which minimization of the total costs including the setup costs, production costs, labor costs, inventory costs, and workforce changing costs is considered as performance measure. The robust approach is used to reduce the effects of fluctuations of the uncertain parameters with regards to all the possible future scenarios. A mixed-integer programming (MIP) model is developed to formulate the related robust production planning problem. In fact the robust proposed model is presented to generate an initial robust schedule. The performance of this schedule could be improved against of any possible occurrences of uncertain parameters. A case from an Iran refrigerator factory is studied and the characteristics of factory and its products are discussed. The computational results display the robustness and effectiveness of the model and highlight the importance of using robust optimization approach in generating more robust production plans in the uncertain environments. The tradeoff between solution robustness and model robustness is also analyzed.     

A stochastic model for assessing the utility of chance

We consider the problem of assessing the utility of chance. One approach is based on offering a decision maker a choice between receiving a fixed chance and a gamble. We investigate theoretical properties of a class of models for the probability of preference of the gamble. We point out an alternative model that models behavior near the boundary more realistically.     

A dynamic production planning and scheduling algorithm for two products processed on one line

This paper presents a dynamic production planning and scheduling algorithm for two products processed on one line over a fixed time horizon. Production rates are assumed fixed, and restrictions are placed or inventory levels and production run lengths. The resulting problem is a nonlinear binary program, which is solved using an implicit enumeration strategy. The algorithm focuses on the run changeover period while developing tighter bounds on the length of the upcoming run to improve computational efficiency. About 99% pf 297 randomly generated problems with varying demand patterns are solved in less than 15 seconds of CPU time on a CDC Cyber 172 Computer. A mixed integer programming formulation of the generalized multi-product case under no-backlogging of demand is also given.