Giuseppe Stecca

Optimization and Simulation of Collaborative Networks for Sustainable Production and Transportation

Complex and delocalized manufacturing industries require high levels of integration between production and transportation in order to effectively implement lean and agile operations. There are, however, limitations in research and applications simultaneously embodying further sustainability dimensions. This paper presents a methodological framework based on optimization and simulation to integrate aggregate optimized plans for production and multimodal transportation with detailed dynamic distribution plans affected by demand uncertainty. The objective function of the optimization model considers supply, production, transportation, and CO2 emission costs, as well as collaboration over the multimodal network. Bill-of-materials and capacity constraints are included. A feedback between simulation and optimization is used to plan requirements for materials and components. Computational experiments are based on realistic instances. Results demonstrate that the framework can be effectively used to analyze cost-CO2 emission tradeoffs, effects of demand uncertainty, and collaborative distribution strategies on economic and environmental performance of the supply chain.

A multi agent system approach for hospital's drugs management using combinatorial auctions

The healthcare services cost are constantly increasing during the last 20 years. This trend has two origins: on one hand the people resort to drugs and healthcare services more often than in the past because more medical treatment are known; on the other hand, this evolution was not supported by an intelligent growth and design of healthcare structure and services. Indeed, a lot of hospital processes, such as drugs and equipments purchasing and managing, are not under control of hospital managers. This work faces the cost and management criticalities presenting a healthcare system as a multi-agent cooperative network. The proposed model faces the challenge of (i) gaining the benefits deriving from successful collaborative models already used in industrial systems and (ii) transferring the most appropriate industrial management practices. The model exploits an operations research technique based on combinatorial auctions in order to effective assign drugs to wards.

Towards an Internet Enabled Cooperative Manufacturing Management Framework

In this paper, manufacturing management issues are addressed at three levels: inter-enterprise, infra-enterprise and shop floor levels. An Internet enabled framework based on Web services and software agents for cooperative manufacturing management is proposed. A Web based integration environment consisting of an agent based scheduling system, a Web based remote monitoring and control system, and corresponding services is designed and developed for the shop floor management. Prototype implementation is briefly introduced and the ongoing research is prospected.

Development of a Multi-Agent Model for Production Scheduling in Innovative Flexible Manufacturing System

The reduction of a Manufacturing System Complexity is possible adopting a decentralized approach focused on optimization at operation level, and on coordination at higher level of production plant. This point of view, inherited by multi agent models, can increase the flexibility and reduce the complexity of the system management. We apply this principle to a shoe manufacturing system, characterized by an automated transportation who, governed by scheduling rules, can exploit the overtake capability. The operational objectives of the plant are to augment the capacity of the system, to rapidly react to market changes and to obtain a better balance machine work load.

A comprehensive model for short-haul and long-haul transportation

In networked production environments and globalized economy an efficient, high quality and sustainable freight transport represents a crucial challenge nowadays. In this context, intermodality can reduce the environmental and social impacts of transportation operations. The paper faces the problem of freight transportation planning of logistics platforms in a multimodal network. Generally, these complex problems are approached in the literature through their decomposition into sub-problems that are individually solved. The paper presents a comprehensive model and a solution method based on Lagrangian relaxation in order to consider simultaneously the features and constraints related to short-haul and long-haul transportation. In the proposed approach a decision maker coordinates logistics platforms and aims at optimizing the transportation plans on a determined time horizon.

An Evolutionary Algorithm for Vehicle Routing Problem with Real Life Constraints

Real life distribution problems present high degree of complexity mostly derived by the need to respect a variety of constraints. Moreover they are not considered by the classical models of the vehicle routing literature. In this paper we consider a vehicle routing problem with heterogeneous vehicle fleet with different capacity, multi-dimensional capacity constraints, order/vehicle, item/vehicle, and item/item compatibility constraints, different start and end locations for vehicles, and multiple time windows restrictions. We propose an evolutionary algorithm based on the combination of a genetic algorithm and local search heuristics. We investigated the performance of the implemented algorithm in the large-scale retail and in the waste collection industries.

A model to realise sustainability in networked production and transportation

Cost optimisation in decentralised, make-to-order production systems requires tight integration with suppliers and transport operations as well as flexible network connections. Additionally, minimisation of environmental impacts of freight flows must be included in the industrial practice to realise sustainable growth. To these aims, the paper presents a model integrating production networks and sustainable freight transportation. The model includes Bill-of-Material constraints with alternative sources having different production and distribution costs. The objective function considers sourcing, production and transportation costs as well as environmental impacts of transport over a multimodal network. Due dates and time windows constraints for production and transportation management are included. Computational experiments are based on a real multimodal network. The optimisation model solved the case study instance. A sensitivity analysis proved the model robustness. The results demonstrate that the model can be effectively used in order to analyse cost-emissions trade-offs and the influence of links’ capacity on emissions.

Process modeling of devices management in home care

Home care (HC) consists of providing a high quality health services to patients in their homes through the use of caregivers and appropriate technologies. HC is a complex system that can be decomposed in simple sub-processes, activities and actors to be better designed, managed and improved. This work presents an attempt to model the activities related to test and management of technologies in the HC care service provided by Local Heath Unit ASL NA1 (Naples, Italy) covering a population of one million inhabitants. The modeling was done using a set of methods / diagrams to describe the process from multiple point of views. Each one allows the identification of resources and constraints to perform the activities. The set of different diagrams has clarified many aspects of test and management of the devices in HC and it has facilitated the fulfillment of operative procedures that will regulate activities in provide HC service.

A Multi-Agent Model Integrating Inventory and Routing Processes

The increasing changing rate of the marketplace forces the enterprise to face the complexity with new organizational paradigms like virtual enterprise or extended enterprise. These organizational paradigms bring in consideration coordination and integration issues of different DSS designed to solve different problems.

Carrier Selection for Multi-commodity Flow Optimization in Cooperative Environments

Freight transportation decisions are critical economic and environmental factors in the design and management of networked manufacturing systems at global scale. Multimodal transportation options in combination with cooperative models between transport operators and together with manufacturers can contribute to define more economically and environmentally sustainable operations. This work addresses the problem of the selection of carriers in an international production and distribution network. The aim is to minimize costs and environmental impacts of freight transport. A cooperative decision-making setting between carriers in response to transportation demand of manufacturers is adopted. An integrated optimization-simulation approach is proposed to model the process of defining the optimal combination of transportation services in a multimodal transport network. Experiments show that collaboration based on shared modal capacity between carriers can produce transport cost reduction and service level improvements.