Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Simulation And Optimization Of Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm For The Stochiastic Uncapacitated Location-Allocation Problem, Jean-Paul Arnaout, Georges Arnaout, John El Khoury

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This study proposes a novel methodology towards using ant colony optimization (ACO) with stochastic demand. In particular, an optimizationsimulation-optimization approach is used to solve the Stochastic uncapacitated location-allocation problem with an unknown number of facilities, and an objective of minimizing the fixed and transportation costs. ACO is modeled using discrete event simulation to capture the randomness of customers’ demand, and its objective is to optimize the costs. On the other hand, the simulated ACO’s parameters are also optimized to guarantee superior solutions. This approach’s performance is evaluated by comparing its solutions to the ones obtained using deterministic data. The results …

Key Factors Driving Personnel Downsizing In Multinational Military Organizations, Ilksen Gorkem, Resit Unal, Pilar Pazos

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Although downsizing has long been a topic of research in traditional organizations, there are very few studies of this phenomenon in military contexts. As a result, we have little understanding of the key factors that drive personnel downsizing in military setting. This study contributes to our understanding of key factors that drive personnel downsizing in military organizations and whether those factors may differ across NATO nations’ cultural clusters. The theoretical framework for this study was built from studies in non-military contexts and adapted to fit the military environment.

This research relies on historical data from one of the largest multinational …