Operations Research articles from January 2004

Operations Research archives from January 2004

A simulation model for predicting yacht match race outcomes.
January 1, 2004... We outline the development of a model for predicting the outcome of a yacht match race between two competing designs. The model is a fixed-time-increment simulation that accounts for the dynamic performance of each yacht. The wind speed and...

Dimensioning large call centers.
January 1, 2004... We develop a framework for asymptotic optimization of a queueing system. The motivation is the staffing problem of large call centers, which we have modeled as M/M/N queues with N, the number of agents, being large. Within our framework, we...

The price of robustness.
January 1, 2004... A robust approach to solving linear optimization problems with uncertain data was proposed in the early 1970s and has recently been extensively studied and extended. Under this approach, we are willing to accept a suboptimal solution for the...

Centers in connected undirected graphs: an axiomatic approach.
January 1, 2004... A center is a function that associates with every finite connected and undirected graph a nonempty subset of its vertices. These functions play an important role in networks such as social or interorganizational networks. Centers capture...

Scheduling multiple parts in a robotic cell served by a dual-gripper robot.
January 1, 2004... A robotic cell--a manufacturing system widely used in industry--contains two or more robot-served machines, repetitively producing a number of part types. In this paper, we consider scheduling of operations in a bufferless dual-gripper robotic...

Overbooking with substitutable inventory classes.
January 1, 2004... This paper considers an overbooking problem with multiple reservation and inventory classes, in which the multiple inventory classes may be used as substitutes to satisfy the demand of a given reservation class (perhaps at a cost). The problem...

Infinite horizon production scheduling in time-varying systems under stochastic demand.
January 1, 2004... We consider infinite horizon production scheduling under stochastic demand. All problem data are allowed to vary across periods, including demand distributions, costs, and revenues. A forecast horizon, when it exists, is a finite problem...

An efficient algorithm for real-time estimation and prediction of dynamic OD tables.(Intelligent Transportation Systems )
January 1, 2004... The problem of estimating and predicting Origin-Destination (OD) tables is known to be important and difficult. In the specific context of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), the dynamic nature of the problem and the real-time...

The big triangle small triangle method for the solution of nonconvex facility location problems.
January 1, 2004... In this paper we propose to modify the big square small square global optimization search in the plane with a big triangle small triangle approach. The triangulation of the feasible region is obtained by using Voronoi diagrams. The resulting...

Modeling the benefits of sharing future demand information.(future demand information)
January 1, 2004... We analyze how sharing of future demand information (FDI) can help companies to lower cost. FDI is imperfect information on the customer demands of the upcoming period. We consider a supply chain with a single retailer and multiple customers,...

Class scheduling for pilot training.
January 1, 2004... In this paper, we study the class scheduling problem at the training center of Continental Airlines. When pilots get new assignments, they must be retrained for up to eight consecutive weeks. During that time, they are removed from the roster,...