‘Pro-poor’ humanitarian logistics: Prioritizing the vulnerable in allocating relief aid

This paper builds on the premise that the most vulnerable areas or groups of people should be protected from disasters by being given priority in humanitarian operations, particularly when there are limited resources available for disaster management. The basis and the development of the paper are strongly aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals … Read more

Maintenance Optimization of Wagons Mix

This work proposes to create a tool for support for cost reduction in wagon maintenance through the distribution of the annual plan in workshops. The distribution depends on the type of wagon, the scope of the maintenance service that each workshop serves, and the capacity that is supported by the workshops. This plan is a … Read more

Optimizing Driver Menus Under Stochastic Selection Behavior for Ridesharing and Crowdsourced Delivery

Peer-to-peer logistics platforms coordinate independent drivers to fulfill requests for last mile delivery and ridesharing. To balance demand-side performance with driver autonomy, a new methodology is created to provide drivers with a small but personalized menu of requests to choose from. This creates a Stackelberg game, in which the platform leads by deciding what menu … Read more

Robust Vehicle Routing under Uncertainty via Branch-Price-and-Cut

This paper contemplates how branch-price-and-cut solvers can be employed along with the robust optimization paradigm to address parametric uncertainty in the context of vehicle routing problems. In this setting, given postulated uncertainty sets for customer demands and vehicle travel times, one aims to identify a set of cost-effective routes for vehicles to traverse, such that … Read more

Robust Planning of Sorting Operations in Express Delivery Systems

Parcel logistics services play a vital and growing role in economies worldwide, with customers demanding faster delivery of nearly everything to their homes. To move larger volumes more cost effectively, express carriers use sort technologies to consolidate parcels that share similar geographic and service characteristics for reduced per-unit handling and transportation costs. This paper focuses … Read more

Discrete Multi-Module Capacitated Lot-Sizing Problems with Multiple Items

We study single-item discrete multi-module capacitated lot-sizing problems where the amount produced in each time period is equal to the summation of binary multiples of the capacities of n available different modules (or machines). For fixed n≥2, we develop fixed-parameter tractable (polynomial) exact algorithms that generalize the algorithms of van Vyve (2007) for n=1. We … Read more

An Application of a Traveling Salesman Problem with Independent Clusters for Cash-Collection Routing

Published in Annals of Operations Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47859-8_26 Motivated by a routing problem faced by banks to enhance their encashment services in the  city of Perm, Russia, we solve versions of the traveling salesman problem with clustering. To minimize the risk of theft, suppliers seek to operate multiple vehicles and determine an efficient routing; and, a single vehicle serves … Read more

Short-Term Inventory-Aware Equipment Management in Service Networks

Logistics companies often operate a heterogeneous fleet of equipment to support their service network operations. This introduces a layer of planning complexity as facilities need to maintain appropriate levels of equipment types to support operations throughout the planning horizon. We formulate an optimization model that minimizes the cost of executing a load plan, assuming knowledge … Read more

Production Routing for Perishable Products

This paper introduces the production routing problem for perishable products with fixed shelf life and gradual decay, where the age of products impacts the price that can be obtained when satisfying customer demands. In this problem, a single supplier is responsible for the production and distribution of perishable products to a set of customers. Fixed … Read more

Optimal design of an electricity-intensive industrial facility subject to electricity price uncertainty: stochastic optimization and scenario reduction

When considering the design of electricity-intensive industrial processes, a challenge is that future electricity prices are highly uncertain. Design decisions made before construction can affect operations decades into the future. We thus explore whether including electricity price uncertainty into the design process affects design decisions. We apply stochastic optimization to the design and operations of … Read more