Mathematical models for Multi Container Loading Problems with practical constraints

We address the multi container loading problem of a company that has to serve its customers by first putting the products on pallets and then loading the pallets into trucks. We approach the problem by developing and solving integer linear models. To be useful in practice, our models consider three types of constraints: geometric constraints, … Read more

Crowdshipping and Same-day Delivery: Employing In-store Customers to Deliver Online Orders

Same-day delivery of online orders is becoming an indispensable service for large retailers. We explore an environment in which in-store customers supplement company drivers and can take on the task of delivering online orders on their way home. Because online orders as well as in-store customers willing to make deliveries arrive throughout the day, it … Read more

Toward breaking the curse of dimensionality: an FPTAS for stochastic dynamic programs with multidimensional action and scalar state

We propose a Fully Polynomial-Time Approximation Scheme (FPTAS) for stochastic dynamic programs with multidimensional action, scalar state, convex costs and linear state transition function. The action spaces are polyhedral and described by parametric linear programs. This type of problems finds applications in the area of optimal planning under uncertainty, and can be thought of as … Read more

Disruption Recovery at Airports: Integer Programming Formulations and Polynomial time algorithms

We study disruptions at a major airport. Disruptions could be caused by bad weather, for example. Our study is from the perspective of the airport, the air services provider (such as air traffic control) and the travelling public, rather than from the perspective of a single airline. Disruptions cause flights to be subjected to ground … Read more

Coordination of a two-level supply chain with contracts under complete or asymmetric information

We consider the coordination of planning decisions of a single product in a supply chain composed of one supplier and one retailer by using contracts. We assume that the retailer has the market power to impose his optimal replenishment plan to the supplier. Our concern is on the minimization of the supplier’s cost. In order … Read more

An enhanced L-Shaped method for optimizing periodic-review inventory control problems modeled via two-stage stochastic programming

This paper presents the development of an enhanced L-Shaped method applied to an inventory management problem that considers a replenishment control system based on the periodic review (R,S) policy. We consider single-item one-echelon problems with uncertain demands and partial backorder that are modeled using two-stage stochastic programming. To enable the consideration of large-scale problems, the … Read more

Exploiting Identical Generators in Unit Commitment

We present sufficient conditions under which thermal generators can be aggregated in mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulations of the unit commitment (UC) problem, while maintaining feasibility and optimality for the original disaggregated problem. Aggregating thermal generators with identical characteristics (e.g., minimum/maximum power output, minimum up/down-time, and cost curves) into a single unit reduces redundancy in … Read more

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Routing and Trajectory Optimisation Problem

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming increasingly popular over the past few years. The complexity of routing UAVs has not been fully investigated in the literature. In this survey, we aim to review recent contributions in UAV trajectory optimisation, UAV routing and contributions addressing these two problems simultaneously. A unified framework is introduced to describe … Read more

The job shop scheduling problem with convex costs

The job shop scheduling literature has been dominated by a focus on regular objective functions — in particular the makespan — in its half a century long history. The last twenty years have encountered a spike of interest in other objectives, such as the total weighted tardiness, but research on non-regular objective functions has always … Read more

Bi-objective autonomous vehicle repositioning problem with travel time uncertainty

We study the problem of repositioning autonomous vehicles in a shared mobility system in order to simultaneously minimize the unsatisfied demand and the total operating cost. We first present a mixed integer linear programming formulation for the deterministic version of the problem, and based on that we develop an extended formulation that is easier to … Read more