Capacity expansion and cost efficiency improvement in the warehouse problem

The warehouse problem with deterministic production cost, selling prices, and demand was introduced in the 1950s and there is a renewed interest recently due to its applications in energy storage and arbitrage. In this paper, we consider two extensions of the warehouse problem and develop efficient computational algorithms for finding their optimal solutions. First, we consider a model where the firm can invest in capacity expansion projects for the warehouse while simultaneously making production and sales decisions in each period. We show that this problem can be solved with a computational complexity that is linear in the product of the length of the planning horizon and the number of capacity expansion projects. We then consider a problem in which the firm can invest to improve production cost efficiency while simultaneously making production and sales decisions in each period. The resulting optimization problem is non‐convex with integer decision variables. We show that, under some mild conditions on the cost data, the problem can be solved in linear computational time. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 367–373, 2016     

Multi‐item capacitated lot‐sizing problems with setup times and pricing decisions

We study a multi‐item capacitated lot‐sizing problem with setup times and pricing (CLSTP) over a finite and discrete planning horizon. In this class of problems, the demand for each independent item in each time period is affected by pricing decisions. The corresponding demands are then satisfied through production in a single capacitated facility or from inventory, and the goal is to set prices and determine a production plan that maximizes total profit. In contrast with many traditional lot‐sizing problems with fixed demands, we cannot, without loss of generality, restrict ourselves to instances without initial inventories, which greatly complicates the analysis of the CLSTP. We develop two alternative Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition formulations of the problem, and propose to solve their relaxations using column generation and the overall problem using branch‐and‐price. The associated pricing problem is studied under both dynamic and static pricing strategies. Through a computational study, we analyze both the efficacy of our algorithms and the benefits of allowing item prices to vary over time. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2010     

Country survey III — Defence spending in West Germany

This survey article deals with defence spending in West Germany from 1960 on, and the resulting manpower levels and major weapons of the Federal Armed forces, focusing on macro‐economic aspects. Statistics compiled from a variety of published and unpublished sources are presented in 16 tables. An econometric defence‐spending function is derived for the period. For comparison, the equivalent data of East Germany from the last years is also presented. The small set of developments in the next few years that can be predicted firmly are discussed.     

Military Debt: Perspectives from the Experience of Arab Countries

The sectoral production function model of Feder (1983) has been widely used to examine the link between defence spending and economic growth. In this paper, the model, for which too much has been claimed in some past work, is examined, and the case is made for using growth in real non‐defence output rather than growth in real aggregate output (inclusive of military spending) as the dependent variable. Attention is restricted to a small group of OECD countries for which reliable labour force and capital stock (as well as defence) data are obtainable. With non‐defence output as the dependent variable and using only high quality data, no evidence in favour of the underconsumptionist (as opposed to the defence as a burden) position is found.     

Dynamic lot‐sizing model with production time windows

We consider a dynamic lot‐sizing model with production time windows where each of n demands has earliest and latest production due dates and it must be satisfied during the given time window. For the case of nonspeculative cost structure, an O(nlogn) time procedure is developed and it is shown to run in O(n) when demands come in the order of latest production due dates. When the cost structure is somewhat general fixed plus linear that allows speculative motive, an optimal procedure with O(T⁴) is proposed where T is the length of a planning horizon. Finally, for the most general concave production cost structure, an optimal procedure with O(T⁵) is designed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

JavaKBB:集成框架与产生式规则的专家系统工具

描述了一个专家系统工具JavaKBB,其目标是设计一个容易使用、方便扩展的专家系统开发工具,可以同时表示领域概念知识与过程知识;既可以运行于商用操作系统Windows等,也可以运行于中标麒麟等军用国产操作系统。为此,提出了一种集成框架与产生式规则的知识表示模式,定义了五种抽象层次以设计一个专家系统,包括知识原语、知识单元、知识部件、知识库以及知识系统;在此基础上基于Java语言设计并实现了JavaKBB。JavaKBB的另外一个重要特征是它能以XML格式保存知识库,具备与其他知识库进行交互的潜力。目前,JavaKBB已经用来构建慢性肝炎防治专家系统、装备辅助决策系统等。     

Exact algorithms for integrated facility location and production planning problems

We consider a class of facility location problems with a time dimension, which requires assigning every customer to a supply facility in each of a finite number of periods. Each facility must meet all assigned customer demand in every period at a minimum cost via its production and inventory decisions. We provide exact branch‐and‐price algorithms for this class of problems and several important variants. The corresponding pricing problem takes the form of an interesting class of production planning and order selection problems. This problem class requires selecting a set of orders that maximizes profit, defined as the revenue from selected orders minus production‐planning‐related costs incurred in fulfilling the selected orders. We provide polynomial‐time dynamic programming algorithms for this class of pricing problems, as well as for generalizations thereof. Computational testing indicates the advantage of our branch‐and‐price algorithm over various approaches that use commercial software packages. These tests also highlight the significant cost savings possible from integrating location with production and inventory decisions and demonstrate that the problem is rather insensitive to forecast errors associated with the demand streams. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011     

Disruption management in production planning

We study the problem of recovering a production plan after a disruption, where the disruption may be caused by incidents such as power failure, market change, machine breakdown, supply shortage, worker no‐show, and others. The new recovery plan we seek after has to not only suit the changed environment brought about by the disruption, but also be close to the initial plan so as not to cause too much customer unsatisfaction or inconvenience for current‐stage and downstream operations. For the general‐cost case, we propose a dynamic programming method for the problem. For the convex‐cost case, a general problem which involves both cost and demand disruptions can be solved by considering the cost disruption first and then the demand disruption. We find that a pure demand disruption is easy to handle; and for a pure cost disruption, we propose a greedy method which is provably efficient. Our computational studies also reveal insights that will be helpful to managing disruptions in production planning. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

A concave‐cost production planning problem with remanufacturing options

We focus on the concave‐cost version of a production planning problem where a manufacturer can meet demand by either producing new items or by remanufacturing used items. Unprocessed used items are disposed. We show the NP‐hardness of the problem even when all the costs are stationary. Utilizing the special structure of the extreme‐point optimal solutions for the minimum concave‐cost problem with a network flow type feasible region, we develop a polynomial‐time heuristic for the problem. Our computational study indicates that the heuristic is a very efficient way to solve the problem as far as solution speed and quality are concerned. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005     

身管武器生产定型时机的量化决策

提出以大型试验批个数来确定身管武器生产定型时机的方法,并依据统计决策与贝叶斯分析方法,结合专家信息与收集的数据,对身管武器生产定型时机作出量化判定,为定型委员会的决策提供理论与数据支持。