International Journal of Industrial Engineering & Production Research

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In this paper, we propose an iterated greedy algorithm for solving the blocking flow shop scheduling problem with total flow time minimization objective. The steps of this algorithm are designed very efficient. For generating an initial solution, we develop an efficient constructive heuristic by modifying the best known NEH algorithm. Effectiveness of the proposed iterated greedy algorithm is tested on the Taillard's instances. Computational results show the high efficiency of this algorithm with comparison state-of-the-art algorithms. We report new best solutions for 88 instances of 120 Taillard's instances.

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Abstract In the dynamic and competitive market, managers seek to find effective strategies for new products development. Since There has not been a thorough research in this field, this study is based on a review on the risks exist in the NPD process and an analysis of risks through FMEA approach to prioritize the existent risks and a modeling behavior of the NPD process and main risks using system dynamics. First, we present new product development concepts and definition. We then based our study on a literature review on the NPD risks and then provide an FMEA approach to define risks priority. Using the obtained main risks, we model the NPD process risks applying system dynamics to analyze the system and the risks effect on. A safety clothing manufacturer is considered as a case study.

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This article develops an integrated JIT lot-splitting model for a single supplier and a single buyer. In this model we consider reduction of setup time, and the optimal lot size are obtained due to reduced setup time in the context of joint optimization for both buyer and supplier, under deterministic condition with a single product. Two cases are discussed: Single Delivery (SD) case, and Multiple Delivery (MD) case. These two cases are investigated before and after setup time reduction. The proposed model determines the optimal order quantity (Q*), optimal rate of setup reduction (R*), and the optimal number of deliveries (N*) -just for multiple deliveries case- on the joint total cost for both buyer and supplier. For optimizing our model two algorithm including Gradient Search and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), which is a population-based search algorithm, are applied. Finally numerical example and sensitivity analysis are provided to compare the aggregate total cost for two cases and effectiveness of the considered algorithm. The results show that which policy for lot-sizing is leading to less total cost.

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In this paper the problem of serial batch scheduling in a two-stage hybrid flow shop environment with minimizing Makesapn is studied. In serial batching it is assumed that jobs in a batch are processed serially, and their completion time is defined to be equal to the finishing time of the last job in the batch. The analysis and implementation of the prohibited transference of jobs among the machines of stage one in serial batch is the main contribution of this study. Machine set-up and ready time for all jobs are assumed to be zero and no Preemption is allowed. Machines may not breakdown but at times they may be idle. As the problem is NP-hard, a genetic algorithm is developed to give near optimal solutions. Since this problem has not been studied previously, therefore, a lower bound is developed for evaluating the performance of the proposed GA. Many test problems have been solved using GA and results compared with lower bound. Results showed GA can obtain a near optimal solution for small, median and large size problems in reasonable time.

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A three stage production system is considered in this paper. There are two stages to fabricate and ready the parts and an assembly stage to assembly the parts and complete the products in this system. Suppose that a number of products of different kinds are ordered. Each product is assembled with a set of several parts. At first the parts are produced in the first stage with parallel machines and then they are controlled and ready in the second stage and finally the parts are assembled in an assembly stage to produce the products. Two objective functions are considered that are: (1) to minimizing the completion time of all products (makespan), and (2) minimizing the sum of earliness and tardiness of all products (∑_i▒(E_i∕T_i ) . Since this type of problem is NP-hard, a new multi-objective algorithm is designed for searching locally Pareto-optimal frontier for the problem. To validate the performance of the proposed algorithm, in terms of solution quality and diversity level, various test problems are made and the reliability of the proposed algorithm, based on some comparison metrics, is compared with two prominent multi-objective genetic algorithms, i.e. NSGA-II and SPEA-II. The computational results show that performance of the proposed algorithms is good in both efficiency and effectiveness criterions.

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This paper considers identical parallel machines scheduling problem with past-sequence-dependent setup times, deteriorating jobs and learning effects, in which the actual processing time of a job on each machine is given as a function of the processing times of the jobs already processed and its scheduled position on the corresponding machine. In addition, the setup time of a job on each machine is proportional to the actual processing time of the already processed jobs on the corresponding machine, i.e., the setup time of a job is past- sequence-dependent (p-s-d). The objective is to determine jointly the jobs assigned to each machine and the order of jobs such that the total completion time (called TC) is minimized. Since that the problem is NP-hard, optimal solution for the instances of realistic size cannot be obtained within a reasonable amount of computational time using exact solution approaches. Hence, an efficient method based on ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO) is proposed to solve the given problem. The performance of the presented model and the proposed algorithm is verified by a number of numerical experiments. The related results show that ant colony optimization algorithm is effective and viable approache to generate optimal⁄near optimal solutions within a reasonable amount of computational time.

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Manufacturing process frequently employs optimization of machining parameters in order to improve product quality as well as to enhance productivity. The material removal rate is a significant indicator of the productivity and cost efficiency of the process. Taguchi method has been implemented for assessing favorable (optimal) machining condition during the machining of nylon by considering three important cutting parameters like cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut during machining on CNC. The objective of the paper is to find out, which process parameters having more impacts on material removal rate during turning operation on nylon using analysis of variance (ANOVA). An Orthogonal array has been constructed to find the optimal levels of the turning parameters and further signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio has been computed to construct the analysis of variance table. The results of ANOVA shown that feed rate has most significant factor on MRR compare to cutting speed and depth of cut for nylon. The confirmation experiments have conducted to validate the optimal cutting parameters and improvement of MRR from initial conditions is 555.56%.

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Most manufacturers use human-machine systems to produce high-quality products. Dealing with human-machine systems is very complicated since not only machines should be utilized in proper condition but also appropriate environment should be provided for human resources. Most manufacturers have a maintenance plan for machines but many of them do not have a proper work-rest schedule for human resources. Considering this fact we emphasis on human role in human-machine systems maintenance and propose a mathematical model that obtains the optimal work-rest schedule for humans based on fatigue-recovery models and the optimal maintenance policy for machines based on reliability level. The performance of proposed model was examined by some instances and the obtained results indicate this model can provide effective maintenance policy for human-machine systems.

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In this paper, we propose a vibration damping optimization algorithm to solve a fuzzy mathematical model for the single-item capacitated lot-sizing problem. At first, a fuzzy mathematical model for the single-item capacitated lot-sizing problem is presented. The possibility approach is chosen to convert the fuzzy mathematical model to crisp mathematical model. The obtained crisp model is in the form of mixed integer linear programming (MILP) which can be solved by existing solver in crisp environment to find optimal solution. Due to the complexity and NP-hardness of the problem, a vibration damping optimization (VDO) is used to solve the model for large-scale problems.  To verify the performance of the proposed algorithm, we computationally compared the results obtained by the VDO algorithm with the results of the branch-and-bound method and two other well-known meta-heuristic algorithms namely simulated annealing (SA) and genetic algorithm (GA). Additionally, Taguchi method is used to calibrate the parameters of the meta-heuristic algorithms. Computational results on a set of randomly generated instances show that the VDO algorithm compared with the other algorithms can obtain appropriate solutions.

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In hybrid flow shop scheduling problem (HFS) with unrelated parallel machines, a set of n jobs are processed on k machines. A mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model for the HFS scheduling problems with unrelated parallel machines has been proposed to minimize the maximum completion time (makespan). Since the problem is shown to be NP-complete, it is necessary to use heuristic methods to tackle the moderate to large scale problems. This article presents a new bottleneck-based heuristic to solve the problem. To improve the performance of the heuristic method, a local search approach is embedded in the structure of the heuristic method. To evaluate the performance of the proposed heuristic method, a new lower bound is developed based on Kurz and Askin [1] lower bound. For evaluation purposes, two series of test problems, small and large size problems, are generated under different production scenarios.  The empirical results show that average difference between lower bound and optimal solution as well as lower bound and heuristic method are equal to 2.56% and 5.23%, respectively. For more investigation, the proposed heuristic method is compared by other well-known heuristics in the literature. The results verify the efficiency of the proposed heuristic method in term of number of best solution.

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Abstract

            In this research, an integrated inventory model for non-instantaneous deteriorating items is analyzed when demand is sensitive to changes in price. The price used in this research is a time-dependent function of the initial selling price and the discount rate. To control the deterioration rate of items at the storage facility, investment in preservation technology is incorporated. To provide a general framework to the model, an arbitrary holding cost rate is used. Toward the end of the paper, a numerical case is given to approve the model and the impacts of the key parameters of the model are studied by sensitivity analysis to deduce managerial insights.

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In last decades, mobile factories have been used due to their high production capability, carrying their equipment and covering rough and uneven routes. Nowadays, more companies use mobile factories with the aim of reducing the transportation and manufacturing costs. The mobile factory must travel between the suppliers, visit all of them in each time period and return to the initial location of the mobile factory. In this paper, we present an integer nonlinear programming model for production scheduling and routing of mobile factory with the aim of maximization of profit. This problem is similar to the well-known Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) which is an NP-hard problem. Also at each supplier, the scheduling problem for production is NP-hard. After linearization, we proposed a heuristic greedy algorithm. The efficiency of this heuristic algorithm is analyzed using the computational studies on 540 randomly generated test instances. Finally, the sensitivity analysis of the production cost, transportation cost and relocation cost was conducted.

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In this research a jobshop scheduling problem with an assembly stage is studied. The objective function is to find a schedule which minimizes completion time for all products. At first, a linear model is introduced to express the problem. Then, in order to confirm the accuracy of the model and to explore the efficiency of the algorithms, the model is solved by GAMS. Since the job shop scheduling problem with an assembly stage is considered as a NP-hard problem, a hybrid algorithm is used to solve the problem in medium to large sizes in reasonable amount of time. This algorithm is based on genetic algorithm and parallel variable neighborhood search. The results of the proposed algorithm are compared with the result of genetic algorithm. Computational results showed that for small problems, both HGAPVNS and GA have approximately the same performance. And in medium to large problems HGAPVNS outperforms GA.

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In this paper, an integrated mathematical model of the dynamic cell formation and production planning, considering the pricing and advertising decision is proposed. This paper puts emphasis on the effect of demand aspects (e.g., pricing and advertising decisions) along with the supply aspects (e.g., reconfiguration, inventory, backorder and outsourcing decisions) in developed model. Due to imprecise and fuzzy nature of input data such as unit costs, capacities and processing times in practice, a fuzzy multi-objective programming model is proposed to determine the optimal demand and supply variables simultaneously. For this purpose, a fuzzy goal programming method is used to solve the equivalent defuzzified multi-objective model. The objective functions are to maximize the total profit for firm and maximize the utilization rate of machine capacity. The proposed model and solution method is verified by a numerical example.

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The present work addresses inventory-routing rescheduling problem (IRRP) that is needed when some minor changes happen in the time of execution of pre-planned scheduling of an inventory-routing problem (IRP). Due to the complexity of the process of departing from one pre-planned scheduling IRP to a rescheduling IRP, here a decision-support tool is devised to help the decision-maker. This complexity comes from the issue that changes in an agreed schedule including the used capacity of the vehicle, total distance and other factors that need a re-agreements negotiation which directly relates to the agreed costs especially when a carrier contractor is responsible for the distribution of goods between customers. From one side he wants to stick to the pre-planned scheduling and from the other side, changes in predicted data of problem at the time of execution need a new optimized solution. The proposed approached applies mathematical modeling for optimizing the rescheduled problem and offers a sensitivity analysis to study the influence of the different adjustment of variables (carried load, distance, …). 

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This paper designs a Scenario analysis approach to determine the joint production policy for two products under possible substitution. The Scenario analysis is designed to improve decision making by considering possible outcomes and their implications. The traditional multi-products production models assume that there is no possible substitution between products. However, in real-world cases, there are many substitutable products where substitution may occur in the event of a product stock-out. The proposed model optimizes production quantities for two products under substitution with the aim of minimizing the total cost of inventory system, including setup and holding costs, subject to a resource constraint. To analyze the problem, four special Scenarios are derived and discussed in detail. Furthermore, the total cost functions are derived for each Scenario separately, and then a solution procedure is suggested based on the Scenarios developed. The numerical examples are implemented, and the results are discussed in detail.

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Companies and firms, nowadays, due to mounting competition and product diversity, seek to apply virtual cellular manufacturing systems to reduce production costs and improve quality of the products. In addition, as a result of rapid advancement of technology and the reduction of product life cycle, production systems have turned towards dynamic production environments. Dynamic cellular manufacturing environments examine multi-period planning horizon, with changing demands for the periods. A dynamic virtual cellular manufacturing system is a new production approach to help manufacturers for decision making. Here, due to variability of demand rates in different periods, which turns to flow variability, a mathematical model is presented for dynamic production planning. In this model, we consider virtual cell production conditions and worker flexibility, so that a proper relationship between capital and production parameters (part-machine-worker) is determined by the minimum lost sales of products to customers, a minimal inventory cost, along with a minimal material handling cost. The problems based on the proposed model are solved using LINGO, as well as an epsilon constraint algorithm.

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Dubai has witnessed the growth of numbers in population and global visitors, which makes it necessary for the city to have an excellent police department to secure all citizens, residents and visitors.  This is necessary for improving Dubai's security and financial condition and cementing the city's importance in the world.  The main objective of this study is to examine the relationship between the delegation of authority, organizational functionality and decision-making process among the employees in Dubai police department UAE.  A total of 380 employees were selected as the study sample using a multistage sampling method. Questionnaires were used in data collection and responses were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM)  for data analysis. The results showed that the delegation of authority affects decision-making among the target population. Moreover, delegation of authority helps the organisation in achieving the objectives with accordance to the imperative’s factors of organizational functionality of the organisation. The results of this research contributed substantially to the current body of knowledge in the domain of delegation of authority in Arab context.  The novelty of this study stem from the reality that the issues and problems of power delegation in Dubai police department was assessed in terms of decision-making process. From these results some recommendations are also suggested which are quite helpful especially, with regards to the latest global models of contemporary leadership and the latest approaches and methods of modern decision-making.

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This paper aims to introduce a joint optimization approach for maintenance, quality, and buffer stock policies in single machine production systems based on a P control chart. The main idea is to find the optimal values of the preventive maintenance period, the buffer stock size, the sample size, the sampling interval, and the control limits simultaneously, such that the expected total cost per time unit is minimized. In the considered system, we have a fixed rate of production and stochastic machine breakdowns which directly affect the quality of the product. Periodic preventive maintenance (PM) is performed to reduce out-of-control states. In addition, corrective maintenance is required after finding each out-of-control state. A buffer is used to reduce production disturbances caused by machine stops. To ensure that demand is met during a preventive and corrective maintenance operation. All features of three sub-optimization problems including maintenance, quality control, and buffer stock policies are formulated and the proposed integrated approach is defined and modeled mathematically. In addition, an iterative numerical optimization procedure is developed to provide the optimal values for the decision variables. The proposed procedure provides the optimal values of the preventive maintenance period, the buffer stock size, the sample size, the sampling interval, and the control chart limits simultaneously, in a way that the total cost per time unit is minimized. Moreover, some sensitivity analyses are carried out to identify the key effective parameters.

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