This research focuses on solving a common wafer test scheduling problem in semiconductor manufacturing. During wafer testing, a series of test processes are conducted on wafers using computer-controlled test stations at various... more
This research focuses on solving a common wafer test scheduling problem in semiconductor manufacturing. During wafer testing, a series of test processes are conducted on wafers using computer-controlled test stations at various temperatures. The test processes are conducted in a specified order on a wafer lot, resulting in precedence constraints for the schedule. Furthermore, the assignment of the wafer lots
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Thesis (Ph. D., Industrial Engineering and Management Science)--Northwestern University, 1999.
We consider a container terminal loading and unloading containers to and from a set of ships, and storing the containers in the terminal yard. Each ship is served by multiple quay cranes, which load and unload containers to and from... more
We consider a container terminal loading and unloading containers to and from a set of ships, and storing the containers in the terminal yard. Each ship is served by multiple quay cranes, which load and unload containers to and from ships. Containers are moved between the ships and the yard using a fleet of vehicles, each with unit capacity. The
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... International Journal of Production Research , 29(8): 16451659. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [CSA] View all references; Pepe, 200461. Pepe, MS 2004. ... [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®],... more
... International Journal of Production Research , 29(8): 16451659. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [CSA] View all references; Pepe, 200461. Pepe, MS 2004. ... [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [CSA] View all references, and the references therein). ...
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ABSTRACT Blood products, derived from donated blood, are essential for many medical treatments, and their safety, in terms of being free of Transfusion-Transmitted Infections (TTIs)—i.e., infectious agents that can be spread through their... more
ABSTRACT Blood products, derived from donated blood, are essential for many medical treatments, and their safety, in terms of being free of Transfusion-Transmitted Infections (TTIs)—i.e., infectious agents that can be spread through their use—is crucial. However, blood screening tests are not perfectly reliable and may produce false negative or false-positive results. Currently, blood donations are tested using a same-for-all testing scheme, where a single test set is used on all blood donations. This article studies differential testing schemes, which may involve multiple test sets, each applied to a randomly selected fraction of the donated blood. Thus, although each blood donation is still tested by a single test set, multiple test sets may be used by the Blood Center. This problem is modeled within an optimization framework and a novel solution methodology is provided that allows important structural properties of such testing schemes to be characterized. It is shown that an optimal differential testing scheme consists of at most two test sets, and such a dual-test scheme can significantly reduce the TTI risk over the current same-for-all testing. The presented analysis leads to an efficient greedy algorithm that generates the optimal differential test sets for a range of budgets to inform the decision-maker (e.g., Blood Center). The differential model is extended to the case where different test sets can be used on sub-sets of donations defined by donation characteristics (e.g., donor demographics, seasonality, or region) that differentiate the sub-set’s TTI prevalence rates. The risk reduction potential of differential testing is quantified through two case studies that use published data from Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States. The study generates key insight into public policy decision making on the design of blood screening schemes.
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ABSTRACT The current airline practice in conducting fleet assignments is to begin assigning aircraft capacity to scheduled flights well in advance of departures. However, the accuracy of the passenger demand forecast improves markedly... more
ABSTRACT The current airline practice in conducting fleet assignments is to begin assigning aircraft capacity to scheduled flights well in advance of departures. However, the accuracy of the passenger demand forecast improves markedly over time, and revisions to the initial fleet assignment become naturally pertinent when the observed demand differs considerably from the assigned aircraft capacities. The demand-driven refleeting (DDR) approach proposed in this paper offers a dynamic reassignment of aircraft capacities to the flight network, when improved demand forecasts become available, so as to maximize the total revenue. Because of the need to preserve the initial crew schedule, this reassignment approach is limited within a single family of aircraft types and to the flights assigned to this particular family. This restriction makes it computationally tractable to include more relevant path-level demand information into the DDR model. Accordingly, we construct a mixed-integer programming model for this enhanced problem context and study its polyhedral structure to explore ways for tightening its representation and for deriving certain classes of valid inequalities. Various schemes for implementing such reformulation techniques are investigated and tested using a set of simulated and real instances obtained from United Airlines.
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We study the capacity, pricing, and production decisions of a monopolist producing two substitutable products with flexible capacity. Although the capacity decision needs to be made ex ante, under demand uncertainty, pricing and... more
We study the capacity, pricing, and production decisions of a monopolist producing two substitutable products with flexible capacity. Although the capacity decision needs to be made ex ante, under demand uncertainty, pricing and production decisions can be postponed until after uncertainty is resolved. We show how key demand parameters (the nature of uncertainty, market size, and market risk) impact the
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We study the optimal resource investment decision faced by a two-product, price-setting firm that operates in a monopolistic setting and employs a postponed pricing scheme. The firm has the option to invest in dedicated resources as well... more
We study the optimal resource investment decision faced by a two-product, price-setting firm that operates in a monopolistic setting and employs a postponed pricing scheme. The firm has the option to invest in dedicated resources as well as a more expensive, flexible resource ...
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ABSTRACT We propose a novel analytic approach for the comparative statics analysis of multiproduct multiresource newsvendor networks under responsive pricing. Our approach involves exploiting the properties of the primal mathematical... more
ABSTRACT We propose a novel analytic approach for the comparative statics analysis of multiproduct multiresource newsvendor networks under responsive pricing. Our approach involves exploiting the properties of the primal mathematical programming formulation and of the dual variables and linking those properties to the concept of convex orders and to properties of the underlying demand function. The use of convex orders allows us to establish our main results without restriction to a specific demand distribution. A major strength of our approach is that it is "scalable," i.e., it applies to newsvendor networks with any number of "nonindependent" (i.e., demand or resource sharing) products and resources, without an exponential increase in effort as problem size increases. This is unlike the current approaches commonly used in the operations management literature, which typically involve a parametric analysis of the recourse problem, followed by the use of Jacobians and the implicit function theorem. Providing a rigorous framework for comparative statics analysis, which can be applied to other problems that are not amenable to traditional parametric analysis, is our main contribution. We demonstrate this approach on the optimal capacity decision problem in multiproduct newsvendor networks under responsive pricing, formulated as a two-stage stochastic programming problem with recourse: The firm determines the resource capacities ex ante, in the first stage, when demand intercepts are uncertain, and makes the pricing and production decisions ex post, in the second stage, when demand intercepts (e.g., market conditions) are fully observed. This particular problem and its variants are well studied in the operations management literature. A comparative statics analysis is integral to the study of the capacity investment decision, as it allows answers to important questions such as the following: "Does the firm acquire more or less of the different resources available as demand uncertainty increases? Does the firm benefit from an increase in demand uncertainty?" Using our proposed approach, we establish comparative statics results on how the newsvendor's expected profit and optimal capacity decision change with demand risk in multiproduct multiresource newsvendor networks. We also extend our analysis to the study of demand dependence in two-product networks.
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ABSTRACT We study the capacity investment decision of a two-product firm that is a price-setter for both products. The products are of varying complexities such that the resource that can be used to produce the higher level product can... more
ABSTRACT We study the capacity investment decision of a two-product firm that is a price-setter for both products. The products are of varying complexities such that the resource that can be used to produce the higher level product can also be used to produce the lower level one, but not vice versa. Although the firm needs to make its capacity investment decision under demand uncertainty, it can utilize this limited (downward) resource flexibility, in addition to pricing, to more effectively match its supply with demand. As an example, consider a firm that owns a main plant, satisfying both end-product and intermediate-product demand, and a subsidiary, satisfying the intermediate-product demand only. We formulate this decision problem as a two-stage stochastic programming problem with recourse and analyze the impact of coordinated decision-making, when the resource flexibility is taken into account in the investment decision, and demand correlation on the firm's optimal investment strategy. Our results offer managerial principles on the firm's optimal resource investment strategy.
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ABSTRACT This article studies the structure of and the interdependence among the critical decisions on pricing, inventory, and assortment of a retailer’s product line. It considers substitutable retail products that are horizontally... more
ABSTRACT This article studies the structure of and the interdependence among the critical decisions on pricing, inventory, and assortment of a retailer’s product line. It considers substitutable retail products that are horizontally differentiated variants under a logit consumer choice model, within a newsvendor-type supply setting and homogeneous pricing. The focus of this article is on analyzing joint pricing and inventory decisions for a given assortment, within a natural Poisson decomposition setting, under a “multiplicative–additive” demand model, where both variance and coefficient of variation of the demand depend on the price. For this problem, a Taylor series-based approximation is developed for the inventory cost and its accuracy is subsequently demonstrated. It is then shown that, under this approximation, the expected profit is unimodal in the price, and sufficient conditions are provided for the “risky” price, at optimal inventory, to be above (or below) the “riskless” price, pertaining to a make-to-order system. It is also shown that inventory considerations alter the behavior of the risky price in demand and cost parameters. Furthermore, joint assortment and inventory decisions under exogenous pricing are considered, and the unimodularity of the expected profit in the assortment size is proven. Also, a comparative statics analysis is performed and insights are presented.
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We study an important problem faced by Blood Centers, of selecting screening tests for donated blood to reduce the risk of “transfusion-transmitted infectious diseases” (TTIs), including the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis... more
We study an important problem faced by Blood Centers, of selecting screening tests for donated blood to reduce the risk of “transfusion-transmitted infectious diseases” (TTIs), including the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis viruses, human T-cell lymphotropic virus, syphilis, West Nile Virus, and Chagas’ Disease. This decision has a significant impact on health care quality in both developed and developing countries.