Search results for "Operations"
showing 10 items of 1692 documents
Including the environmental criteria when selecting a wastewater treatment plant
2014
Abstract Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology to generate environmental impact estimates associated with the life cycle stages of a product or process. The approach facilitates a more comprehensive outlook of the end-of-pipe process impacts, in which wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are included. Here we describe the implementation of the LCA methodology within a knowledge-based Decision support system (DSS) in order to include the environmental criteria to the decision making process when selecting the most appropriate process flow diagrams for specific scenarios. A sample group of 22 actual operating facilities in Spain, corresponding to five different typologies were assessed …
Split-Delivery Capacitated Arc-Routing Problem: Lower Bound and Metaheuristic
2010
International audience; This paper proposes lower and upper bounds for the split-delivery capacitated arc-routing problem (SDCARP), a variant of the capacitated arc-routing problem in which an edge can be serviced by several vehicles. Recent papers on related problems in node routing have shown that this policy can bring significant savings. It is also more realistic in applications such as urban refuse collection, where a vehicle can become full in the middle of a street segment. This work presents the first lower bound for the SDCARP, computed with a cutting plane algorithm and an evolutionary local search reinforced by a multistart procedure and a variable neighborhood descent. Tests on …
Real-time weighting optimization in Chinese Postman Problem
2013
International audience; In this study, based on real-time constraint, an optimization method is proposed for solving the problem of the optimal tour. For that, we will construct a graph containing the real-time state of traffic. The collected data will be used to predict the future state traffic and to give an optimized cost of the tour. This optimization is tested in different sizes of the road networks. The results show that the proposed method is efficient and effective in solving the Chinese Postman Problem in real-time.
A Note on the Flaws of MFA (Minimal Flow Analysis)
2012
MFA (Minimal Flow Analysis) is a method of qualitative input-output analysis used for identifying national of regional industrial clusters. It is based on the analysis of layers (in an input-output model, flow matrices generated at each iteration toward equilibrium). We show through theory that all normalized layers (column-coefficient matrices computed from each layer) are equal in MFA. This is illustrated by an application to France's 2009 input-output table. Therefore, the information brought by one layer is identical to those of another layer: layers bring no specific information, which unfortunately implies that MFA is not a good tool to study intersectoral linkages, despite the intere…
Multi-step ahead electricity price forecasting using a hybrid model based on two-layer decomposition technique and BP neural network optimized by fir…
2017
In the deregulated competitive electricity market, the price which reflects the relationship between electricity supply and demand is one of the most important elements, making it crucial for all market participants to precisely forecast the electricity price. However, electricity price series usually has complex features such as non-linearity, non-stationarity and volatility, which makes the price forecasting turn out to be very difficult. In order to improve the accuracy of electricity price forecasting, this paper first proposes a two-layer decomposition technique and then develops a hybrid model based on fast ensemble empirical mode decomposition (FEEMD), variational mode decomposition …
fuzzy approach to the robust facility layout in uncertain production environments
2001
The proposed method approaches the problem of the optimal facility layout using fuzzy theory. The optimal layout is a robust layout that minimizes the total material handling cost, when the product market demands are uncertain variables, which are defined as fuzzy numbers. Since each department has a limited production capacity, not all possible combinations, deriving from each product's market demand, are taken into account because some combination could exceed the overall department's productivity. Therefore, the optimal solution results by solving a 'constrained' fuzzy optimization problem, in which the fuzzy material handling costs corresponding to the layouts are evaluated, and a ranki…
Negotiation in Distributed Production Planning Environments
2006
Mass customization and global competition push enterprises to adopt proper business models able to capture all the opportunities arising from emerging competition rules. An increasing number of industrial enterprises distribute their production capacity world wide to achieve lower production costs, lower distribution costs (due to the closer proximity to customers), and deeper knowledge of customer needs. As a drawback, coordination of the different production plants and the balance among plants and enterprise goals represent a critical issue in the network management. In this context the paper looks at the production planning problem, adopting a traditional hierarchical time-based perspect…
A Fuzzy Discrete Event Simulator for Fuzzy Production Environment Analysis
1998
Abstract Discrete Event Simulation is a powerful tool to help production managers in planning manufacturing systems. The necessity to rapid react to market conditions is pushing production planners to process requirements and information affected by vagueness. Vagueness is related with event definition, therefore it is not manageable through statistical tools, but more properly by using fuzzy mathematics. Production situations where uncertainty takes body in term of vagueness are referred as Fuzzy Production Environments. Classical Discrete Event simulators are not suitable to deal with fuzzy variables, therefore they cannot be used to model Fuzzy Production Environments. This paper aims to…
An Object-Oriented Approach to Discrete-Event Simulation Applied to Underground Railway Systems
1999
This paper describes the implementation of an object-oriented simulator that supports the determination of timetables and the design of on-line control policies for underground rail way systems. The simulator has been developed on the basis of a new approach to object- oriented modelling. Such an approach has been used to design a development tool that supports the generation of simulation codes and is able to automatically define the skeleton of a code.
Risk Assessment of a compound feed process based on HAZOP analysis and linguistic terms
2016
[EN] The size and complexity of industrial plants, along with the characteristics of the products used, require a study, analysis and control of the existing risks in every industrial process. In this paper, a methodology for risk assessment in industrial plants, based on the combination of risks identification through the Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) analysis and the risks evaluation through linguistic variables and fuzzy numbers is applied to a case study consisting on a compound feed plant located in the town of Silla (Valencia, Spain). The results from this study show that the main risk in the compound feed production process is the formation of explosive atmospheres (ATEX). Therefore…