Business Commons^™

Effect Of Retiring Custom Web Applications On Business And Information Technology Alignment, Shubhashree Thekahally

Shubhashree Thekahally 7340504

Web applications provide the information technology (IT) implementation of business and align IT with business. Retirement of IT applications should ensure stability of business and IT alignment. The current study investigated the alignment gaps created between business and IT resulting from retiring IT software applications. The purpose of this study was to identify IT integration points with business and provide a process-based solution that sustained IT alignment with business after retiring IT applications. The theoretical framework strategic alignment model aided in identifying 3 IT domains as the IT integration points with business: enterprise architecture, configuration management database, and service-level agreement. …

Enhancing Manufacturing Planning And Control Systems Through Artificial Intelligence Techniques, Ronald S. Dattero, John J. Kanet, Edna M. White

John J. Kanet

Manufacturing planning and control systems are currently dominated by systems based upon Material Requirements Planning (MRP). MRP systems have a number of fundamental flaws. A potential alternative to MRP systems is suggested after research into the economic batch scheduling problem. Based on the ideas of economic batch scheduling, and enhanced through artificial intelligence techniques, an alternative approach to manufacturing planning and control is developed. A framework for future research on this alternative to MRP is presented.

Production Planning And Control Systems-State Of The Art And New Directions, V. Sridharan, John Kanet

John J. Kanet

This chapter begins with a description of the role of production planning and control (PPC) within the manufacturing function. After discussing the impact of the operating environment on the choice a system for PPC, we describe some recent empirical evidence regarding the use and performance results of various PPC systems. This is followed by a brief overview of the two most widely used systems for production planning and control. We then describe a recent development in the area of short-term detailed scheduling exploiting the latest developments in computing technology. The chapter concludes with a discussion of an emerging paradigm for …

Operations Research For Freight Train Routing And Scheduling, Steven Harrod, Michael Gorman

Michael F. Gorman

This article describes the service design activities that plan and implement the rail freight operating plan. Elements of strategic service design include the setting of train frequency, the routing of cars among trains, and the consolidation of cars, called blocking. At the operational level, trains are dispatched either according to train paths configured in advance, called timetables, or according to priority rules. We describe the North American and European practice along with selected modeling and problem solving methodologies appropriate for each of the operating conditions described.

Operations Research Approaches In Asset Management In Freight Rail, Michael Gorman, Steven Harrod

Michael F. Gorman

This article describes operations research methodologies as they apply to asset management in freight rail. We describe state-of-the-art methods for locomotive, crew, rail-car, line and yard planning and management. We conclude with emerging areas of research in rail.

Capacity Planning With Financial And Operational Hedging In Low‐Cost Countries, Lijian Chen, Shanling Li, Letian Wang

Lance (Lijian) Chen

The authors of this paper outline a capacity planning problem in which a risk-averse firm reserves capacities with potential suppliers that are located in multiple low-cost countries. While demand is uncertain, the firm also faces multi-country foreign currency exposures. This study develops a mean-variance model that maximizes the firm’s optimal utility and derives optimal utility and optimal decisions in capacity and financial hedging size. The authors show that when demand and exchange rate risks are perfectly correlated, a risk- averse firm, by using financial hedging, will achieve the same optimal utility as a risk-neutral firm. In this paper as well, …

A Simulation-Based Approach To Solve A Specific Type Of Chance Constrained Optimization, Lijian Chan

Lance (Lijian) Chen

We solve the chance constrained optimization with convex feasible set through approximating the chance constraint by another convex smooth function. The approximation is based on the numerical properties of the Bernstein polynomial that is capable of effectively controlling the approximation error for both function value and gradient. Thus, we adopt a first-order algorithm to reach a satisfactory solution which is expected to be optimal. When the explicit expression of joint distribution is not available, we then use Monte Carlo approach to numerically evaluate the chance constraint to obtain an optimal solution by probability. Numerical results for known problem instances are …

Re-Solving Stochastic Programming Models For Airline Revenue Management, Lijian Chen, Tito Homem-De-Mello

Lance (Lijian) Chen

We study some mathematical programming formulations for the origin-destination model in airline revenue management. In particular, we focus on the traditional probabilistic model proposed in the literature. The approach we study consists of solving a sequence of two-stage stochastic programs with simple recourse, which can be viewed as an approximation to a multi-stage stochastic programming formulation to the seat allocation problem. Our theoretical results show that the proposed approximation is robust, in the sense that solving more successive two-stage programs can never worsen the expected revenue obtained with the corresponding allocation policy. Although intuitive, such a property is known not …

Ancillary Service Capacity Optimization For Both Electric Power Suppliers And Independent System Operator, Lijian Chen, Dengfeng Sun, Guang Li

Lance (Lijian) Chen

Ancillary Services (AS) in electric power industry are critical to support the transmission of energy from generators to load demands while maintaining reliable operation of transmission systems in accordance with good utility practice. The ancillary services are procured by the independent system operator (ISO) through a process called the market clearing process which can be modeled by the partial equilibrium from the ends of ISO. There are two capacity optimization problems for both Market participants (MP) and Independent System Operator (ISO). For a market participant, the firm needs to determine the capacity allocation plan for various AS to pursue operating …

Capacity-Driven Pricing Mechanism In Special Service Industries, Lijian Chen, Suraj M. Alexander

Lance (Lijian) Chen

We propose a capacity driven pricing mechanism for several service industries in which the customer behavior, the price demand relationship, and the competition are significantly distinct from other industries. According our observation, we found that the price demand relationship in these industries cannot be modeled by fitted curves; the customers would neither plan in advance nor purchase the service strategically; and the competition would be largely local. We analyze both risk neutral and risk aversion pricing models and conclude the proposed capacity driven model would be the optimal solution under mild assumptions. The resulting pricing mechanism has been implemented at …

Smart Cities: Environmental Aspects And Opportunities, Marcus R. Wigan

Marcus R Wigan

Alcts Crs Holdings Information Forum, 3-4 P.M. January 31, 2015, Connie Foster

Connie Foster

Cecilia Genereux (data management & access/metadata & intellectual access, University of Minnesota Libraries) introduced the session by confessing to a pun intended for her presentation: Alma: To Have and to Hold. The levity quickly shifted into some very detailed analysis of the way the Ex Libris Alma system handled specific types of serials during a migration from Aleph. The University of Minnesota started with Aleph (Ex Libris) in 2002 and moved to Alma on December 26, 2013. Frances McNamara (director, Integrated Library Systems and Administrative and Desktop Systems at University of Chicago), discussed migrating serials data from Horizon to Kulai …

Data, Analytics And Community-Based Organizations: Transforming Data To Decisions For Community Development, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Michael P. Johnson

The past ten years have seen a revolution in two disciplines related to operations and strategy design. “Big Data” has transformed the theory and practice of producing and selling goods and services through methods associated with computer science and information technology. “Analytics” has popularized primarily quantitative models and methods by which organizations and systems can measure multiple aspects of performance. As these fields rely on information technology to collect, store, process and share data, we refer to the collection of knowledge and applications associated with Big Data and analytics as “data analytics and information technology.” The impacts of data analytics …