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Full-Text Articles in Operations and Supply Chain Management

Managing The Personalized Order-Holding Problem In Online Retailing, Shouchang Chen, Zhenzhen Yan, Yun Fong Lim Jan 2024

Managing The Personalized Order-Holding Problem In Online Retailing, Shouchang Chen, Zhenzhen Yan, Yun Fong Lim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: A significant percentage of online consumers place consecutive orders within a short duration. To reduce the total order arrangement cost, an online retailer may consolidate consecutive orders from the same consumer. We investigate how long the retailer should hold the consumer’s orders before sending them to a third-party logistics provider (3PL) for processing. In this order-holding problem, we optimize the holding time to balance the total order arrangement cost and the potential delay in delivery. Methodology/results: We model the order-holding problem as a Markov Decision Process. We show that the optimal order-holding decisions follow a threshold-type policy that …


Vehicle Rebalancing In A Shared Micromobility System With Rider Crowdsourcing, Ziliang Jin, Yulan Wang, Yun Fong Lim, Kai Pan, Zuo-Jun Max Shen Mar 2023

Vehicle Rebalancing In A Shared Micromobility System With Rider Crowdsourcing, Ziliang Jin, Yulan Wang, Yun Fong Lim, Kai Pan, Zuo-Jun Max Shen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: Shared micromobility vehicles provide an eco-friendly form of short-distance travel within an urban area. Since customers pick up and drop off vehicles in any service region at any time, such convenience often leads to a severe imbalance between vehicle supply and demand in different service regions. To overcome this, a micromobility operator can crowdsource individual riders with reward incentives in addition to engaging a third-party logistics provider (3PL) to relocate the vehicles. Methodology/results: We construct a time-space network with multiple service regions and formulate a twostage stochastic mixed-integer program considering uncertain customer demands. In the first stage, the …


A Constraint Programming Approach To Load Capacity Planning In Container Vessels, Byung Kwon Lee, Joyce M. W. Low Feb 2022

A Constraint Programming Approach To Load Capacity Planning In Container Vessels, Byung Kwon Lee, Joyce M. W. Low

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A container vessel carries containers of various characteristics, in terms of size, weight, and contents. The cargo load of a container vessel, being subjected to a set of operational conditions and restrictions regarding ship stability and safety, is a fundamental element in decision-making when a shipping line provides logistics services to clients. This study presents a constraint programming-based model for the capacity planning of a container vessel under various operational conditions. The proposed model generates base solutions and is complemented with a rich scenario-based analysis that utilizes real-life ship data of a container vessel operated by a liner shipping company …


Schedule Reliability In Liner Shipping Timetable Design: A Convex Programming Approach, Abraham Zhang, Zhichao Zheng, Chung-Piaw Teo Jan 2022

Schedule Reliability In Liner Shipping Timetable Design: A Convex Programming Approach, Abraham Zhang, Zhichao Zheng, Chung-Piaw Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Container liner shipping is the primary mode of moving manufactured products across continents. Partly due to inherent uncertainties at sea and ports, the liner shipping industry has long had a notorious reputation of schedule delays and unreliable on-time performance. This paper formulates a new approach to incorporate schedule reliability targets in liner shipping timetable design, to balance bunker consumption, time taken for the voyage, and schedule delays. We first model a surrogate problem using a copositive program through a moment decomposition approach and solve it as a convex semidefinite programming relaxation. We next incorporate schedule reliability targets implicitly by exploiting …


Resource Capacity Requirement For Multi-Terminal Cooperation In Container Ports, Byung Kwon Lee, Mei Wan Low Oct 2021

Resource Capacity Requirement For Multi-Terminal Cooperation In Container Ports, Byung Kwon Lee, Mei Wan Low

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Capacity sharing among neighboring terminals offer a means to meet increasing or unexpected demand for cargo-handling without additional capital investment. This study proposes a model for capacity requirement planning of major resources, such as quay cranes (QCs), storage space, and gate, in multiterminal port operations where demand is time dependent. A resource profile simulation is run to generate random events across the terminals and estimate the capacity requirement in the form of workload distributions on port resources over time-shifts. The effects on workload requirement, arising from multiterminal cooperation, are subsequently evaluated in consideration of different container flows among terminals. Experimental …


We Are On The Way: Analysis Of On-Demand Ride-Hailing Systems, Guiyun Feng, Guangwen Kong, Zizhuo Wang Sep 2021

We Are On The Way: Analysis Of On-Demand Ride-Hailing Systems, Guiyun Feng, Guangwen Kong, Zizhuo Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: Recently, there has been a rapid rise of on-demand ride-hailing platforms, such as Uber and Didi, which allow passengers with smartphones to submit trip requests and match them to drivers based on their locations and drivers’ availability. This increased demand has raised questions about how such a new matching mechanism will affect the efficiency of the transportation system—in particular, whether it will help reduce passengers’ average waiting time compared with traditional street-hailing systems. Academic/practical relevance: The on-demand ride-hailing problem has gained much academic interest recently. The results we find in the ride-hailing system have a significant …


Impact Of Penalty Cost On Customers' Booking Decisions, Jianghua Zhang, Daniel Zhuoyu Long, Rowan Wang, Chi Xie Apr 2021

Impact Of Penalty Cost On Customers' Booking Decisions, Jianghua Zhang, Daniel Zhuoyu Long, Rowan Wang, Chi Xie

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study a novel newsvendor-type problem where the information on demand quantity is not exogenously given. The customer needs to make the booking decision based on her estimation on demand, which is affected by the value of shortage penalty cost. The problem is motivated by low-cost airline service practices where passengers need to book baggage allowance for their travel. The baggage overweight price affects the accuracy of passengers’ baggage weight estimation and thus their booking quantities. Through stochastic decision models, we analytically characterize the impact of shortage penalty cost on passengers’ booking decisions as well as airline’s profit. We consider …


Urban Consolidation Center Or Peer-To-Peer Platform? The Solution To Urban Last-Mile Delivery, Qiyuan Deng, Xin Fang, Yun Fong Lim Apr 2021

Urban Consolidation Center Or Peer-To-Peer Platform? The Solution To Urban Last-Mile Delivery, Qiyuan Deng, Xin Fang, Yun Fong Lim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The growing population in cities and booming e-commerce activities create huge demand for urban last-mile delivery, exerting intense pressure on the cities' well-being. To keep congestion and pollution under control, a consolidator can operate an urban consolidation center (UCC) to bundle shipments from multiple carriers before the last-mile delivery. Alternatively, the consolidator can operate a peer-to-peer platform for the carriers to share delivery capacity. We provide guidance for the consolidator to choose between these two business models by comparative analysis. We capture the interactions between the consolidator and carriers using a game-theoretical framework. Under each business model, the consolidator first …


Peer-To-Peer Trade And The Economy Of Distributed Pv In China, Peiyun Song, Yiou Zhou, Jiahai Yuan Jan 2021

Peer-To-Peer Trade And The Economy Of Distributed Pv In China, Peiyun Song, Yiou Zhou, Jiahai Yuan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the deepening of power market reform, distributed power generation is gaining momentum. This paper tests the distributed photovoltaic (DPV) economy under different business models by taking three provinces to stand for typical resource zones. The Internal return rate (IRR) is used to measure the economy, while the improved levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is used to model the generation cost. Three business modes, namely pure producer (all generation sold to the grid), prosumer (self-use and the rest sold to the grid), and peer-to-peer trade (P2P, all generation traded via the grid) are studied. Results show that peer-to-peer trade is …


A Two-Stage Parallel Network Dea Model For Analyzing The Operational Capability Of Container Terminals, Jaehun Park, Byung Kwon Lee, Joyce M. W. Low Dec 2020

A Two-Stage Parallel Network Dea Model For Analyzing The Operational Capability Of Container Terminals, Jaehun Park, Byung Kwon Lee, Joyce M. W. Low

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study proposes a systematical approach to evaluate the operational capability of container terminals and discusses the effect of resource usages on operational performances. Two inter-dependent processes (i.e. the loading-discharging (L&D) and the delivery-receiving (D&R) operational processes) with shared/non-shared resources and common/separate productions are examined and characterized as a two-stage parallel network. An evaluation model is developed upon the principles of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the operational capability of the terminals. Using the real-world dataset of 9 container terminals at Port of Busan, comparative performance results are obtained for 5 years spanning across 2014–2018. The proposed model demonstrates …


Understanding The Operating Landscape Of The Global Airline Industry: A Dea Integrated Alternating Conditional Expectation Approach, Joyce M. W. Low, Kum Khiong Yang Jun 2019

Understanding The Operating Landscape Of The Global Airline Industry: A Dea Integrated Alternating Conditional Expectation Approach, Joyce M. W. Low, Kum Khiong Yang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: This study investigates the relationships between service efficiency in 5 major cost centres (namely, business orientation, network coverage, physical resources, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), and human resources) and profitability in the global airline industry. Design/methodology: The study integrates the Slack-based Model (SBM) of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with the Alternating Conditional Expectation (ACE) regression to understand the relationships between an airline’s profitability and its efficiencies in 5 identified operations areas. Findings: Based on the observational data obtained from 75 international airlines, the relationships between operational performances and profitability are found to be curvilinear and contingent on an airline’s …


Is Promoting Public Transit An Effective Intervention For Obesity? A Longitudinal Study Of The Relation Between Public Transit Usage And Obesity, Zhaowei She, Douglas M. King, Jacobson H. Sheldon Jan 2019

Is Promoting Public Transit An Effective Intervention For Obesity? A Longitudinal Study Of The Relation Between Public Transit Usage And Obesity, Zhaowei She, Douglas M. King, Jacobson H. Sheldon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

There is increasing evidence on the association between public transit usage and obesity. To further understand the causal impact of changes in county public transit usage on county obesity rates, this paper presents a longitudinal study on this topic. Annual health data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and transportation data from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) were aggregated and matched at the county level, to create a panel data set with 227 counties from 45 states across two time periods, 2001 and 2009. Annual public transit funding, obtained from the National Transit Database (NTD), is chosen …


Event-Based Allocation Of Airline Check-In Counters: A Simple Dynamic Optimization Method Supported By Empirical Data, Mahmut Parlar, Brian Rodrigues, Sharafali Moosa Sep 2018

Event-Based Allocation Of Airline Check-In Counters: A Simple Dynamic Optimization Method Supported By Empirical Data, Mahmut Parlar, Brian Rodrigues, Sharafali Moosa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper studies the real-life problem of dynamically optimizing the number of airport check-in counters to allocate for a single flight. The main feature of our work is the use of empirical data collected at the Singapore Changi Airport, which drives the dynamic optimization model of a parallel queues system. We propose an event-based dynamic programming model that simplifies considerably the optimization analysis even for large-scale problems with 700+ booked passengers. We investigate the following research questions: (a) For a particular flight, what is the optimal number of counters the system should open with and what is the corresponding optimal …


Optimization Of A Cyclic Express Subway Service, Hai Wang, Jiangang Jin, Jingfeng Yang Jun 2018

Optimization Of A Cyclic Express Subway Service, Hai Wang, Jiangang Jin, Jingfeng Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With rapid population growth and increasing demand for urban mobility, metropolitan areas such as Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai are increasingly dependent on public transport systems. Various strategies are proposed to improve the service quality and capacity of bus and subway systems. Express trains-i.e., trains that skip certain stations-are commonly used, because they can travel at higher speeds, potentially reduce travel time, and serve more passengers. In this paper, we study cyclic express subway service (CESS), in which express trains provide routine transport service with cyclic (periodic) station-skip patterns that can be used in daily service. We propose an exact Mixed …


Analyzing The Impact Of Public Transit Usage On Obesity, Zhaowei She, Douglas M. King, Jacobson Sheldon Sheldon Jun 2017

Analyzing The Impact Of Public Transit Usage On Obesity, Zhaowei She, Douglas M. King, Jacobson Sheldon Sheldon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The objective of this paper is to estimate the impact of county-level public transit usage on obesity prevalence in the United States and assess the potential for public transit usage as an intervention for obesity. This study adopts an instrumental regression approach to implicitly control for potential selection bias due to possible differences in commuting preferences among obese and non-obese populations. United States health data from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and transportation data from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey are aggregated and matched at the county level. County-level public transit accessibility and vehicle ownership rates are …


Is Electricity Storage Green? A Study On Commercial Buildings, Yangfang (Helen) Zhou Jun 2017

Is Electricity Storage Green? A Study On Commercial Buildings, Yangfang (Helen) Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Electricity storage facilities, such as industrial batteries, are considered the “holy grail” in decarbonizing the electrical grid. They are being widely installed in commercial buildings, e.g., hospitals and shopping centers. We model the problem of managing electricity storage in a commercial building as a Markov Decision Process. Our numerical results, based on models calibrated to the electricity load profiles of 100 commercial buildings in the U.S., show that for every electricity load profile, storage operation may increase carbon emissions.


Patrol Scheduling In An Urban Rail Network, Hoong Chuin Lau, Zhi Yuan, Aldy Gunawan Apr 2016

Patrol Scheduling In An Urban Rail Network, Hoong Chuin Lau, Zhi Yuan, Aldy Gunawan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents the problem of scheduling security teams to patrol a mass rapid transit rail network of a large urban city. The main objective of patrol scheduling is to deploy security teams to stations of the network at varying time periods subject to rostering as well as security-related constraints. We present several mathematical programming models for different variants of this problem. To generate randomized schedules on a regular basis, we propose injecting randomness by varying the start time and break time for each team as well as varying the visit frequency and visit time for each station according to …


A Rolling Horizon Auction Mechanism And Virtual Pricing Of Shipping Capacity For Urban Consolidation Centers, Chen Wang, Hoong Chuin Lau, Yun Fong Lim Sep 2015

A Rolling Horizon Auction Mechanism And Virtual Pricing Of Shipping Capacity For Urban Consolidation Centers, Chen Wang, Hoong Chuin Lau, Yun Fong Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A number of cities around the world have adopted urban consolidation centers (UCCs) to address challenges of last-mile deliveries. At the UCC, goods are consolidated based on their destinations prior to their deliveries into city centers. Typically, a UCC owns a fleet of ecofriendly vehicles to carry out such deliveries. Shippers/carriers that make use of the UCC’s service hence no longer need to be restricted by timewindow and vehicle-type regulations. As a result, they retain the ability to deploy large trucks for the economies of scale from the source to the UCC which is located outside the city center. Furthermore, …


Electric Vehicles With A Battery Switching Station: Adoption And Environmental Impact, Buket Avci, Karan Girotra, Serguei Netessine Apr 2015

Electric Vehicles With A Battery Switching Station: Adoption And Environmental Impact, Buket Avci, Karan Girotra, Serguei Netessine

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The transportation sector's carbon footprint and dependence on oil are of deep concern to policy makers in many countries. Use of all-electric drive trains is arguably the most realistic medium-term solution to address these concerns. However, motorist anxiety induced by an electric vehicle's limited range and high battery cost have constrained consumer adoption. A novel switching-station-based solution is touted as a promising remedy. Vehicles use standardized batteries that, when depleted, can be switched for fully charged batteries at switching stations, and motorists only pay for battery use. We build a model that highlights the key mechanisms driving adoption and use …


Evaluations Of Port Performances From A Seaborne Cargo Supply Chain Perspective, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam, Loon Ching Tang, Zhang Lan Jul 2013

Evaluations Of Port Performances From A Seaborne Cargo Supply Chain Perspective, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam, Loon Ching Tang, Zhang Lan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Previous research on port efficiency focuses primarily on the provider’s perspective and assumes that maximizing the output is always desirable. This paper recognizes that maximizing the final output does not necessarily guarantee an efficient system and the notion of port efficiency and service effectiveness needs to be considered from the perspectives of both the provider and the consumer of the port service. The paper proposes a network-DEA model to evaluate the performances of 30 seaports worldwide. The concurrent consideration of efficiency scores from the network-DEA model and the traditional DEA-CCR model will offer valuable insights to port operators on how …


Maritime Trade Evolutions And Port City Developments In Asia, X. J. Yang, Joyce M. W. Low, Loon Ching Tang Aug 2011

Maritime Trade Evolutions And Port City Developments In Asia, X. J. Yang, Joyce M. W. Low, Loon Ching Tang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Historically, almost all goods transported worldwide have been carried by sea with the current estimate stands at approximately 90 percent by volume and 70 percent by worth. Maritime industry is an important economic sector as it has a direct impact on the prosperity of a region and/or city. This chapter presents a review on maritime trade evolution in Asia from the thirteenth centuries to the post-World War II, followed by an examination on the contemporary development of some major Asia ports. From the extant port literature, a list of factors affecting port competition and development is identified and reviewed. The …


Understanding Port Choice Behaviour: A Network Perspective, Loon Ching Tang, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam Mar 2011

Understanding Port Choice Behaviour: A Network Perspective, Loon Ching Tang, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A novel Network-based Integrated Choice Evaluation (NICE) model is developed to enhance the multinomial logit preference (MNL) model that is widely employed in the existing port choice literature. The NICE model integrates the element of port service network with observational port attributes to identify important quality characteristics on which liner shipping companies base their port choices. An empirical study of the proposed model is conducted through the service schedules of three established liner shipping companies. Results show that port efficiency and scale economies are the more important dimensions influencing liner shipping companies’ selection of major Asian ports. Nevertheless, it is …


Effect Of Credit Ratings On Airport Financing And Management, Kazusei Kato, Koichiro Tezuka, Joyce M. W. Low Jul 2010

Effect Of Credit Ratings On Airport Financing And Management, Kazusei Kato, Koichiro Tezuka, Joyce M. W. Low

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper analyzes the effect of airport ownership structure on management efficiency as reflected through their credit ratings. A game-theoretical model is proposed to examine the role of credit ratings in mitigating the moral hazard problem of public-owned airports. The analytical results derived from the model are then used to supplement a supporting case study. Notwithstanding the fact that the less competitive environment of a public-owned entity and its credit ratings might bring some welfare loss , this research concludes that public-owned airports have some advantages.


Aircraft Leasing With Contracts, Qiong Zuo Jan 2010

Aircraft Leasing With Contracts, Qiong Zuo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

We study a problem of rental rate pricing and rental contract designing in aircraft leasing industry. In a framework of Stackelberg game, the system is composed of an airline company (carrier) and an aircraft leasing company (lessor). Acting as the leader, the lessor announces daily rental rates and/or provides long-term contracts on a finite horizon with multiple periods. For each period, the carrier determines the aircraft leasing number to adjust the flight capacity, and applies a dynamic pricing policy for air-tickets based on a seasonally stochastic demand and some economic factor, such as oil price. We find the optimal policies …


Procure Financing For Shipping By Auctions, Kekun Wu Jan 2010

Procure Financing For Shipping By Auctions, Kekun Wu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

We study a risk management problem in the scenario of ship procurement. A shipping firm faces a certain financing pressure for the procurement of a new ship. On the other hand, the capacity of the ship excesses the demand requirement of the firm. The firm wants to reduce the payment and control the risk by selling a percentage of capacity to another shipping company. We introduce an auction mechanism for the firm to select the partner and determine the sharing percentage. Acting as the auctioneer, the firm announces a certain percentage of capacity to a set of buyers. The payment …


Towards A Single European Sky, Yael Gruksha-Cockayne, Bert De Reyck Jun 2009

Towards A Single European Sky, Yael Gruksha-Cockayne, Bert De Reyck

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We describe an integrated decision-making framework and model that we developed to aid EUROCONTROL, the European air traffic management organization, in its vital role of constructing a single unified European sky. Combining multicriteria decision analysis with large-scale optimization methods, such as integer programming and column generation using branch and price, our model facilitates the process by which the numerous European aviation stakeholders evaluate and select technological enhancements to the European air traffic management system. We consider multiple objectives and potential disagreements by stakeholders regarding the impact of proposed system enhancements and allow for different priorities for each key performance area. …


The Role Of European Governments In The Digital Economy, Arnoud Cyriel Leo De Meyer Jan 2006

The Role Of European Governments In The Digital Economy, Arnoud Cyriel Leo De Meyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

What is the role of government in the digital economy? It is not our intention to go into an in-depth ideological debate on whether governments should intervene in the business sector. We will try to adopt a pragmatic approach and explore what already happens in practice. It is up to the reader to make a judgment to what extent the governments should be involved in the ICT sector. There is enough indication that, due to network externality effects, governments need to take on an active role in stimulating an e-environment to jump-start the move toward a higher level of e-readiness.In …