Chi-Leung Chu

Single-vendor multi-buyer inventory coordination under private information

This paper considers the problem of coordinating a single-vendor multi-buyer inventory system when there are privacy restrictions in the information required to solve the problem. The objective function and cost parameters of each facility are regarded as private information that no other facilities in the system have access to. Moreover, each facility is responsible to specify its own replenishment policy. The objective is to minimize the total average setup/ordering and inventory-related cost. Solution methodologies under private and global information are developed to find two types of nested power-of-two stationary policies. The first policy assumes all the buyers must replenish simultaneously. The second policy is a more general case where the common replenishment assumption is relaxed. A simple form of information exchange is uncovered that allows the solution methodologies for private and global information yield the same results. The experimental results suggest that the performance of the proposed heuristics is comparable or better than an existing method.

Scalable methodology for supply chain inventory coordination with private information

This paper considers the problems of coordinating serial and assembly inventory systems with private information where end-item demands are known over a finite horizon. In a private information environment, the objective function and cost parameters of each facility are regarded as private information that no other facilities in the system have access to. The solution approach decomposes the problem into separable subproblems such that the private information is partitioned as required. Global optimality is sought with an iterative procedure in which the subproblems negotiate the level of material flows between facilities. At the core of the solution procedure is a supplier-buyer link model that can be used as a building block to form other supply chain configurations. Experimental results show that the proposed methodology provides promising results when compared to competing methodologies that disregard information privacy.

Program for Optimizing Diamond Interchanges in Oversaturated Conditions

Traditionally, optimization of diamond interchange timings has been done with PASSER III for standard and special diamond phasing sequences. PASSER III is limited because it is designed for undersaturated conditions. It applies vertical stacking of queues and is not capable of modeling queue spillback conditions in its current form. This deficiency is addressed by the arterial signal coordination software (ASCS), whose capabilities in timing diamond interchanges in under-saturated and oversaturated conditions are presented here. ASCS consists of three modules: (a) input module, a user interface through which volume and geometry inputs can be provided to the program; (b) optimization module, a genetic algorithm-based optimization routine that can optimize signal timings; and (c) analysis module, which consists of a bandwidth analysis routine and a delay analysis routine (DAR). The DAR is a mesoscopic simulator that applies a second-by-second analysis of flows for modeling flows accurately. DAR applies horizontal stacking of queues and shock wave analysis to estimate the performance of traffic operations. Validation of ASCS for oversaturated arterial links against PASSER III and CORSIM was conducted. The results indicate that delay and throughput estimation in ASCS are realistic. The genetic algorithm-based optimization routine in ASCS was applied to estimate diamond interchange timings for three scenarios. Where queue spillback occurred, ASCS clearly outperformed PASSER III. ASCS produced near-optimal results for all scenarios studied.

Regional Impact of Roadway Construction on Traffic Operations

The objective of this study was to develop a methodology for assessing the impact of road construction that could be used to (a) predict the network-level impact of road construction projects, (b) identify critical roadway segments and corridors in which the impacts of construction are expected to be the most severe, and (c) compare alternative construction scenarios and schedules. Dynamic traffic assignment formed the basis of an approach to assess the regional impact of road construction and compare alternative construction schedule scenarios. The application of the model was illustrated with the use of a hypothetical case of two road construction projects in the roadway system of El Paso, Texas.