bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Old Bachelor Acceptance: A New Class of Non-Monotone Threshold Accepting Methods
Authors: Hu T. C. , Kahng Andrew B. , Tsao Chung-Wen Albert 
Published: October 2008

Stochastic hill-climbing algorithms, particularly simulated annealing (SA) and threshold acceptance (TA), have become very popular for global optimization applications. Typical implementations of SA or TA use monotone temperature or threshold schedules, and are not formulated to accommodate practical time limits. We present a new threshold acceptance strategy called Old Bachelor Acceptance (OBA), which has three distinguishing features: (i) it is specifically motivated by the practical requirement of optimization within a prescribed time bound, (ii) the threshold schedule is self-tuning, and (iii) the threshold schedule is non-monotone, with threshold values even allowed to become negative. The standard implementation of the TA method of Dueck and Scheuer is a special case of OBA. Experiments using several classes of symmetric traveling salesman problem instances show that OBA can outperform previous hill-climbing methods for time-critical optimizations. A number of directions for future work are suggested. INFORMS Journal on Computing, ISSN 1091-9856, was published as ORSA Journal on Computing from 1989 to 1995 under ISSN 0899-1499.
Solving a Class Scheduling Problem with a Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Herrmann Jeffrey W. , Lee Chung-Yee 
Published: October 2008

In this paper, we study the one-machine scheduling problem of minimizing the total flowtime subject to the constraint that each job must finish before its deadline, where the jobs to be scheduled fall into different job classes and setups occur whenever the machine processes consecutive jobs from different classes. A new heuristic is proposed for the problem. We investigate the use of a genetic algorithm to improve solution quality by adjusting the inputs of the heuristic. We present experimental results that show that the use of such a search can be successful. INFORMS Journal on Computing, ISSN 1091-9856, was published as ORSA Journal on Computing from 1989 to 1995 under ISSN 0899-1499.
Ghost Image Processing for Minimum Covariance Determinants
Authors: Woodruff David L. 
Published: October 2008

In this paper we describe a ghost image processing (see Glover [Glover, F. 1994. Optimization by Ghost image processing in neural networks. Comput. Oper. Res. 21(8) 801–822.] application to the problem of finding the minimum covariance determinant (MCD) estimator of multi-variate shape and location (see Rousseeuw [Rousseeuw, P. J. 1985. Multivariate estimation with high breakdown point. W. Grossman, G. Pflug, I. Vincze, W. Werz, eds. Mathematical Statistics and Applications, Vol. B. Dordrecht, Reidel.]). The MCD is resistant to contamination and has other desirable statistical properties but is difficult to compute. Ghost image processing offers an opportunity to make use of knowledge of the form of solutions when constructing algorithms to solve hard combinatorial optimization problems. Experimental results and comparisons with steepest descent lend additional insights. INFORMS Journal on Computing, ISSN 1091-9856, was published as ORSA Journal on Computing from 1989 to 1995 under ISSN 0899-1499.
Optimizing Transportation Service for Oil Exploration
Authors: Mortagy Amr K. , Eleithy Said A. 
Published: October 2008

Onshore or land-type drilling rigs used for oil exploration in remote desert areas, commonly found in the Middle East, require an adequate system of transportation. Trucks are needed to transport the rig itself, accessory camp facilities, and material and equipment for the drilling operations. A trucking program has to be worked out which allows for no shutdown of operation. At the same time transportation cost should be kept at a minimum. This paper deals with such a situation by identifying the various factors affecting the transportation service, with special emphasis on those under the direct control of the transportation manager. It then provides an analytical approach and a simplified technique that can be easily pursued by the transportation manager in order to provide the number of trucks resulting in minimum cost and with no shutdown or standby rig time.
Naval Ship Production: A Claim Settled and a Framework Built
Authors: Cooper Kenneth G. 
Published: October 2008

Program overruns, contract disputes, and legal confrontation between defense contractors and the government escalated seriously over the 1970's. The author led the development and application of a computer simulation model to resolve a $500 million shipbuilder claim against the US Navy. By using the model to diagnose the causes of cost and schedule overruns on two multibillion-dollar shipbuilding programs. Ingalls Shipbuilding quantified the costs of disruption stemming from Navy-responsible delays and design changes; in June 1978, the Navy agreed out of court to pay $447 million of the claim. Use of the model (which was the basis for at least $200–300 million of the settlement) broke new legal ground, providing the defense and legal communities with a means by which adversary relationships can be avoided and equitable settlements of contract cost disputes achieved. Ingalls Shipbuilding (a division of Litton Industries, Inc.) now has extended the model to aid strategic decision making in managing its shipyard operations. Each phase of several shipbuilding programs—acquisition and utilization of manpower, scheduling and performance of work, and managerial decisions throughout the program—can be accurately simulated. Executives find it valuable as a test bed for evaluating the consequences of alternative policies in bidding and marketing, contract management, program work scheduling, resource management, and cost forecasting. Also, it provides a needed technique in the avoidance of contractor claims.
Coordinating Decisions for Increased Profits
Authors: King R. H. , Love R. R. 
Published: October 2008

This paper describes how a major tire manufacturer has attained an increase in productivity through the application of Management Science. Like most manufacturers, The Kelly-Springfield Tire Company has long recognized the difficulty and importance of coordinating sales forecasting, inventory control, production planning, and distribution decisions. The evolution of an integrated “Total System” approach is traced, with emphasis on the ability of the latest Management Science system to adapt to the constantly changing tire business. The original Total System, implemented in 1970, reduced production lead time to generate estimated annual savings of $500,000; benefits totaling over $5 million during the past decade. Since the implementation of the latest system in 1976, Kelly-Springfield's share of the auto and truck tire replacement market has increased about 1% in an industry recently characterized by significant losses, excess productive capacity, and intense price competition. Average unit inventory decreased by 19% while customer service improved, productivity increased, and additional savings totaling $7.9 million annually resulted. Numerous data support facilities were developed to attain the desired flexibility. The resulting capability to supply information quickly and accurately has been employed to obtain improved estimates of profit and loss and return on investment, to plan future sales strategies and advertising campaigns more effectively, to purchase production equipment, to analyze market share and product offerings, and to make and satisfy commitments to customers regarding availability of new products.
Book Reviews
Authors: Lev Benjamin 
Published: October 2008

In “Book Reviews,” we review an extensive and diverse range of books. They cover theory and applications in operations research, statistics, management science, econometrics, mathematics, computers, and information systems. In addition, we include books in other fields that emphasize technical applications. However, we do not review software. To submit a book for review, please send it to me at the above address. Although we cannot review all books because of space limitations, we do list all books that we receive. We commission all book reviews and do not accept unsolicited reviews. To become a reviewer, please send me your name, address, and specific areas of expertise. We encourage readers to suggest books for review or to ask publishers to send copies of such books. The authors or editors of books we review in this issue are Nagraj Balakrishnan, Barry Render, Ralph M. Stair Jr., Balbir S. Dhillon, and Rolf G. Poluha.
Optimization Tradecraft: Hard-Won Insights from Real-World Decision Support
Authors: Brown Gerald G. , Rosenthal Richard E. 
Published: October 2008

Practitioners of optimization-based decision support advise commerce and government on how to coordinate the activities of millions of people who employ assets worth trillions of dollars. The contributions of these practitioners substantially improve planning methods that benefit our security and welfare. The success of real-world optimization applications depends on a few trade secrets that are essential, but that rarely, if at all, appear in textbooks. This paper summarizes a set of these secrets and uses examples to discuss each. “Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.” Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Scheduling Crewmen for Recurrent Training
Authors: Shapiro Monroe 
Published: October 2008

This paper describes a computer-based model developed at American Airlines to schedule crewmen for recurrent training. Based upon contractual agreements, the crewman's training pay depends upon whether he is relieved of flying a trip or sent on his days off. The model determines, systemwide, the least cost recurrent training schedule consistent with the available capacity of training facilities. The Recurrent Training System has now been in active use for three years, and the annual savings derived from its use have been conservatively estimated at $250,000. These savings result primarily from a decrease in the amount of training done on crew members' days off and an increase in the amount of training done by removing crew members from flying trips. Previous manual procedures, based primarily on intuition and experience, sought to schedule most of the training on crew members' days off.
Barker-Sharon Laws of Truck Dynamics
Authors: Barker Henry H. , Sharon Ed M. 
Published: October 2008

For the past two-and-one-half years the authors have been involved in extensive Management Science efforts to support the operations of the ANR Freight System, a relatively new offspring of American Natural Resources, which is now the seventh largest trucking company in the nation. ANR Freight was formed to manage four regional motor freight common carriers. Our first assignment was to develop better understanding of operational problems from a strategic perspective; we were asked to propose and develop computerized planning decision aids to allow periodic review and fine tuning of strategic decisions. In that process we gained a tremendous amount of insight into the linehaul operation of regional motor carriers. We also had our share of success and failure in solving large-scale mathematical optimization problems. Our ultimate success in implementing productivity improvements, which resulted in an annual savings of $9 million, will be described in the December 1981 Special Practice Issue of Interfaces. This paper was the winner of the 1981 Tenth Annual International Achievement Award Competition of the TIMS College on the Practice of Management Science.
Reducing Uncollectible Revenue from Residential Telephone Customers
Authors: Showers J. L. , Chakrin L. M. 
Published: October 2008

Motivated by a dramatic growth in Bell System uncollectible revenues, a set of uniform, objective, and nondiscriminatory credit-granting practices have been developed which will apply to the 12 million new residential telephone customers each year and result in an annual reduction of $137 million in bad debts. These savings will be factored into the regulatory rate-setting process, and thus a substantial benefit will accrue to the telephone customer. The cornerstone of the new credit procedures is a set of credit-scoring rules to determine which new telephone service applicants should provide preservice security deposits. By more accurately identifying high-credit-risk applicants and requesting deposits only from them, the reduction in bad debt can be achieved with fewer total deposit requests. These new credit-scoring rules were developed through what is perhaps the largest credit study ever done, involving the credit profiles and telephone payment histories of over 87,000 customers. As a consequence of the study, a new methodology for constructing simple but effective credit-scoring rules has been developed which could be of general use in a broad spectrum of applications, including credit problems of other industries as well as other “classification” or “screening” problems.
Behavioral Science—Decision Support Systems: A New Plateau of Opportunity or More Emperor's Clothing?
Authors: Wynne Bye 
Published: October 2008

This month's column is an attempt to help each of us come to grips with DSS. We, as professional OR/MS practitioners and/or theoreticians, need to face the problem squarely. Are the DSS's truly new and more fertile environments for the effective incorporation of OR/MS in the organizational management processes? Or, are DSS concepts simply a new manifestation of the early naive expectations which were created by advocates in the evolution from electronic data processing (EDP) to management information systems (MIS)? In order to shed any light on this “opportunity vs chimera” paradox of DSS, we need a common understanding of what we mean by DSS. A necessary step, then, is to offer a definition of DSS.
Competitive Cost Dynamics: The Experience Curve
Authors: Hax Arnoldo C. , Majluf Nicolas S. 
Published: October 2008

This is the first of three articles about some popular tools that have been widely used since the early 1970's to support strategic decision-making. The article below deals with the experience curve; subsequent articles will deal with the growth-share matrix and the industry attractiveness-business strength matrix. These tools have inspired a degree of controversy about their uses and limitations, issues that will be explored in this and the subsequent articles. This is the first of the tutorial articles we will be publishing in Interfaces. The objective of a tutorial article is to describe an important technique or an application area for Interfaces readers who are nonexperts in the field. Please write and let me know what area(s) you would like to see covered in tutorial articles (and who you would like to see write them) and what area(s) you would be prepared to cover in a tutorial of your own.
Microcomputers and Management Science
Authors: Belshaw Paul N. 
Published: October 2008

This column will be a forum for publishing contributions about management scientists' use of microcomputers for problem solving. What have been the successes? What have been the difficulties? What are the advantages of microcomputers? What are their disadvantages? In this issue I will try to convince skeptics why those who practice or teach management science must look into the possibilities of microcomputers. Microcomputers are not just very small computers. The personal microcomputer, in particular, offers a new way of implementing computer models so that their use becomes second nature to decision makers. The wide distribution of these machines offers an unparalleled opportunity for the distribution of OR models.
Applications of Single-Card and Dual-Card Kanban
Authors: Schonberger Richard J. 
Published: October 2008

Kanban is a Japanese technique for requesting more manufacturing materials on an as-needed basis by issuing a Kanban (card), plus an empty container. Kanban is a pull system of replenishment, as opposed to the push system that governs schedule-based systems like material requirements planning (MRP). Toyota's dual-card Kanban technique, with a productivity-improvement feature, is contrasted with a less-potent and simpler technique employing a single Kanban. Kanban techniques are also compared with MRP, reorder point, and continuous replenishment techniques.
Computer Aided Train Dispatching: Decision Support Through Optimization
Authors: Sauder Richard L. , Westerman William M. 
Published: October 2008

A mini-computer based information system with on-line optimal route planning capability was developed to assist dispatchers on the complex northern portion of Southern Railway's Alabama Division. The routing plan is revised automatically as conditions change. Since implementation in September 1980, train delay has been more than 15 percent lower, reflecting annual savings of $316,000. The dispatching support system is now being expanded to all other Southern Railway operating divisions with $3,000,000 annual savings expected from reduced train delay.
Misapplications Reviews: Crime News
Authors: Barnett Arnold 
Published: October 2008

It's been a while since I've talked about felonies in the analysis of crime data, but not because such transgressions have ceased to exist. Now as before, a distressing fraction of published statistics about crime are incomplete, illogical, or indisputably wrong. And such deficiencies do not seem to deprive these statistics of influence in the discussion and formulation of public policy. Here I will describe three of the more egregious misapplications I've encountered recently. I would not argue that the examples below are a random sample of anything; nor do I believe that the troubles arose from deliberate attempts at deception. But, as I hope will be apparent to the reader, any assertion that the problems are freakish and inconsequential is as implausible as the statistics themselves.
Merger Strategies, Economic Cycles, and Stockholder Value
Authors: Lubatkin Michael , O'Neill Hugh 
Published: October 2008

Merging continues to be a popular strategic alternative. Since 1983, over 12,200 companies and corporate divisions, worth about a fifth of the market value of all traded stocks, have changed hands. Along with the wave of mergers are persistent myths, one being that stockholders of acquiring firms rarely benefit from mergers. If mergers do not create stockholder value, why do corporate decision makers continue to view mergers as a way to achieve redirection and growth? If mergers do create stockholder value, why is there little supporting evidence? New evidence shows that certain types of mergers completed in certain economic contexts can enhance the wealth of stockholders in the acquiring firms.
Franz Edelman Award for Management Science Achievement
Authors: Robinson Randall S. , Graves Stephen C. 
Published: October 2008

Editorial by Randall S. Robinson, Chairman, 1988 Edelman Award, and Stephen C. Graves, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The 17th annual Edelman competition got under way in the summer of 1987 with a call for abstracts. Submitted abstracts were reviewed by a selection committee, which picked 14 for what is termed verification. After verification, seven finalists were chosen to give presentations in an all-day session on April 24, 1988 at the TIMS/ORSA national meeting in Washington, DC. The judges deliberated from immediately after that session to about 2:00 a.m. the next morning. The first prize, accompanied by a cash award of $6,000, was won by the City of San Francisco Police Department. Co-second prizes ($1,000 each) went to Electric Power Research Institute; and Marriott Corporation, Courtyard Division. Four finalists earned honorable mention, each with a prize of $500: Bethlehem Steel Corporation; Istanbul Chamber of Industry, Turkey; Texaco Inc.; and United States Air Force, Tinker Air Force Base.
Management Science Roundup
Authors: Bucatinsky Julio 
Published: October 2008

In the first part, the editor announces new correspondents of the column, asks for feedback about the relevance and usefulness of the material, and encourages the formation of groups within TIMS whose main purpose is to promote the use of management science methods within a given industry. In this issue the following topics are presents: —“Specials: (1) Let's apply the management sciences—David B. Hertz, (2) Trends in technology and trade—James H. Wakelin, Jr., (3) Management science at American Express—Robert C. Reiner”; —“Reports: (1) Planning and control in marketing and finance—Markland, (2) Mini-information system for a bank—Komar, (3) Operations planning—Parker, (4) Management Science in Denver, Colorado—Anglund, (5) STAR symposium in Washington—Harris, (6) International Planning Conference—JB, and (7) College on Finance being organized—JB”; —“Seen Elsewhere: (1) Profit, the Role of Management Science and Management Education, (2) CPM in Building and Civil Construction, (3) O/R Application to Furniture Production, (4) Analysis of Some Time Sharing Techniques, (5) Power Demand and Load Forecasting, (6) How Engineers Provided Input to Management Information Systems, (7) Designing Human Oriented Codes, (8) Using Simulation to Accomplish Practical Job Sequencing, (9) Use of Probability and Utility Theory in the Analysis of Capital Investment Alternatives, (10) Engineering Manpower Planning and Skill Forecasting, (11) Model Building with Particular Reference to the Use of Productive Capacity, (12) How Can Systems Engineers Do Systems Engineering, (13) Adaptive Control Economics, (14) Utilizing Management Information Systems, and (15) Optimal Inspection Procedures”; —“Bulletin Board: (1) TIMS meetings, (2) Other meetings/symposia, (3) Personal notes, and (4) Notices”; —“Deadline for future issues of INTERFACES”.
Book Reviews
Authors: Lev Benjamin 
Published: October 2008

Samson, Danny 1988, Managerial Decision Analysis, Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, Illinois, 743 pp., $47.50—reviewed by Ha Jin Hwang Harmon, Roy and Peterson, Leroy 1990, Reinventing the Factory: Productivity Breakthroughs in Manufacturing Today, The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan Inc., New York, 303 pp., $35.00—reviewed by Heungsoon Felix Lee Hoover, Stewart V. and Perry, Ronald F. 1989, Simulation: A Problem-Solving Approach, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts, 400 pp., $43.96—reviewed by Layek Abdel-Malek Tabucanon, Mario T. 1989, Multiple Criteria Decision Making in Industry, Elsevier, The Netherlands, 356 pp., $117.00—reviewed by Ha Jin Hwang Mumford, Enid and MacDonald, W. Bruce 1989, Xsel's Progress, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 241 pp., $44.95—reviewed by David Chender Chou