Optimizing profit and logistics for precast concrete production

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 393-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jieh-Haur Chen ◽  
Shangyao Yan ◽  
Hsing-Wei Tai ◽  
Chao-Yu Chang

This study serves as a practical model for optimizing production planning, allocation of precast component storage, and transportation sites as well as for making timely adjustments for contracted projects. To ensure that the structure of the research model is reasonable and matches actual applications, the study uses a field survey to directly observe the largest precast concrete plants in Taiwan for a period of 6 months, followed by in-depth interviews with experts involved with the planning, design, installation, and manufacturing for precast projects. The mathematical model is then established and evaluated using the data containing over 90% of national production in Taiwan. The results show that the tested corporate profits increase by an impressive 38.4% and performance is significantly increased by 97.75%. The proposed model can not only make up for oversights in human decision-making but improve the decision-making process boosting corporate competitiveness.

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria G. Achkar ◽  
Valentina Bär ◽  
Franco Cornú ◽  
Carlos A. Méndez

AbstractThis study proposes an advanced discrete-event simulation-based tool to support decision-making in the internal logistic design of a packaging line of a multinational brewery company. The selected software, Simio, allows emulating, advising and predicting the behavior of complex real-world systems. The simulation model provides a 3D interface that facilitates verification and validation. In this work, the designed model is used to understand the dynamic interactions between multiple factors and performance measures including both material-handling and inventory systems and to define necessary quantities and/or capacities of resources for a future can packaging line. Based on the proposed model, a what-if analysis is performed to determine inventory threshold values and other critical variables in order to optimize the configuration of internal logistics in potential scenarios.


2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (05) ◽  
pp. 1450020 ◽  
Author(s):  
MEHRDAD ASHTIANI ◽  
MOHAMMAD ABDOLLAHI AZGOMI

Trust models play an important role in computational environments. One of the main aims of the work undertaken in this domain is to provide a model that can better describe the socio-technical nature of computational trust. It has been recently shown that quantum-like formulations in the field of human decision making can better explain the underlying nature of these types of processes. Based on this research, the aim of this paper is to propose a novel model of trust based on quantum probabilities as the underlying mathematics of quantum theory. It will be shown that by using this new mathematical framework, we will have a powerful mechanism to model the contextuality property of trust. Also, it is hypothesized that many events or evaluations in the context of trust can be and should be considered as incompatible, which is unique to the noncommutative structure of quantum probabilities. The main contribution of this paper will be that, by using the quantum Bayesian inference mechanism for belief updating in the framework of quantum theory, we propose a biased trust inference mechanism. This mechanism allows us to model the negative and positive biases that a trustor may subjectively feel toward a certain trustee candidate. It is shown that by using this bias, we can model and describe the exploration versus exploitation problem in the context of trust decision making, recency effects for recently good or bad transactions, filtering pessimistic and optimistic recommendations that may result in good-mouthing or bad-mouthing attacks, the attitude of the trustor toward risk and uncertainty in different situations and the pseudo-transitivity property of trust. Finally, we have conducted several experimental evaluations in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model in different scenarios.


Author(s):  
Minh D. Nguyen

The research aims to introduce a new decision-making model for designing a manufacturing line (ML) project in Vietnamese manufacturing plants. The new model has been built from the theory of made-in-Vietnam lean decision-making model and authenticated via multitude of practical methods (observation, surveys, in-depth interviews, and case studies). This model pursues the method of optimal thinking to make the most effective decision in designing manufacturing lines. The proposed model has been confirmed by practical application. The model would be used not only for Vietnamese enterprises but also for other enterprises in both developing and developed countries.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elyria A. Kemp ◽  
Aberdeen Leila Borders ◽  
Nwamaka A. Anaza ◽  
Wesley J. Johnston

Purpose Organizational buying behavior has often been treated as a rational activity, even though humans are involved in the decision-making. Human decision-making often includes a complex cadre of emotions and rationalizations. Subsequently, organizational buyers may not only be driven by logic, testing and facts, but also by emotions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that emotions play in organizational buying behavior. Design/methodology/approach In-depth interviews were conducted with marketing decision-makers for one of the most valuable brands in the world. The role that emotions play in the behavior of organizational buyers is elucidated from the perspective of these marketing professionals. Findings Emotions are prevalent at all stages in the organizational decision-making process and various discrete emotions fuel action tendencies among buyers. Efforts are made by marketers to strategically manage the emotions buyers experience. Practical implications Although organizational buyers must see the functional value of a product or brand, companies need to consider ways in which brands can connect with buyers on an emotional and personal level. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature by offering insights into which discrete or specific emotions are most prominent in organizational buying behavior and how the manifestation of these emotions impact decision-making at each stage in the buying cycle.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 1582-1612
Author(s):  
Sarfaraz Hashemkhani Zolfani ◽  
Ömer Faruk Görçün ◽  
Hande Küçükönder

Positioning in the right location for organizing logistics activities is a determinative factor in the aspect of costs, effectivity, productivity, and performance of these operations carried out by logistics firms. The proper logistics village selection is a crucial, complicated, and time-consuming process for decision-makers who have to make the right and optimal decision on this issue. Decision-makers need a methodological frame with a practical algorithm that can be implemented quickly to solve these decision-making problems. Within this scope, the current paper aims to present an evaluation tool, which provides more reasonable and reliable results for decision-makers to solve the logistics village selection problem that is very complicated and has uncertain conditions based on fuzzy approaches. In this study, we propose the Improved Fuzzy Step-Wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (IMF SWARA), a modified and extended version of the traditional fuzzy Step-Wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (F-SWARA) to identify the criteria weights. Also, we suggest applying the fuzzy Multi-Attributive Border Approximation area Comparison (F-MABAC) technique to determine the preference ratings of the alternatives. This combination has many valuable contributions. For example, it proposes to use a more reliable and consistent evaluation scale based on fuzzy sets. Hence, decision-makers can perform more reliable and reasonable pairwise comparisons by considering this evaluation scale. Besides, it presents a multi-attribute evaluation system based on the identified criteria weights. From this perspective, the proposed model is implemented to evaluate eight different logistics village alternatives with respect to nine selection criteria. According to the analysis results, while A8 is the most appropriate option, C1 Gross National Product (GNP) is the most significant criterion. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis was performed to test the robustness and validation of the proposed model, and the results of the analysis approve the validity and applicability of the proposed model. As a result, the suggested integrated MCDM framework can be applied as a valuable and practical decision-making tool to develop new strategies and improve the logistics operations by decision-makers.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Pablo Franco ◽  
Nitin Yadav ◽  
Peter Bossaerts ◽  
Carsten Murawski

Life presents us with decisions of varying degrees of difficulty. Many of them are NP-hard, that is, they are computationally intractable. Two important questions arise: which properties of decisions drive extreme computational hardness and what are the effects of these properties on human-decision making? Here, we postulate that we can study the effects of computational complexity on human decision-making by studying the mathematical properties of individual instances of NP-hard problems. We draw on prior work in computational complexity theory, which suggests that computational difficulty can be characterized based on the features of instances of a problem. This study is the first to apply this approach to human decision-making. We measured hardness, first, based on typical-case complexity (TCC), a measure of average complexity of a random ensemble of instances, and, second, based on instance complexity (IC), a measure that captures the hardness of a single instance of a problem, regardless of the ensemble it came from. We tested the relation between these measures and (i) decision quality as well as (ii) time expended in a decision, using two variants of the 0-1 knapsack problem, a canonical and ubiquitous computational problem. We show that participants expended more time on instances with higher complexity but that decision quality was lower in those instances. These results suggest that computational complexity is an inherent property of the instances of a problem, which affect human and other kinds of computers.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remus Ilies ◽  
Timothy A. Judge ◽  
David T. Wagner

This paper focuses on explaining how individuals set goals on multiple performance episodes, in the context of performance feedback comparing their performance on each episode with their respective goal. The proposed model was tested through a longitudinal study of 493 university students’ actual goals and performance on business school exams. Results of a structural equation model supported the proposed conceptual model in which self-efficacy and emotional reactions to feedback mediate the relationship between feedback and subsequent goals. In addition, as expected, participants’ standing on a dispositional measure of behavioral inhibition influenced the strength of their emotional reactions to negative feedback.


2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott D. Brown ◽  
Pete Cassey ◽  
Andrew Heathcote ◽  
Roger Ratcliff

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