752 research outputs found
Practical optimisation model for SMEs of last mile delivery service
No full textThe delivery business is growing rapidly and consistently in the whole world. This is leading small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to join the business of the last mile delivery service. SMEs are different from the big players in services and products offered; thus, also the optimisation objectives of the SMEs are different from the big partners: often, SMEs do not possess vehicles and outsource to external partners the last mile deliveries, thus they aim to optimise the assignment of the deliveries for minimising the costs. Hence, the development of methods to find feasible solutions for assignation problems related to last mile delivery becomes fundamental for SMEs. This paper aims to address the problem of cost minimisation when outsourcing the last mile delivery service by mathematically representing the assignment decision problem and by proposing the genetic algorithm (GA) as metaheuristic to solve the problem. The tests revealed the effectiveness of the GA
A proposal for estimating the order level for slow moving spare parts subject to obsolescence
No full textDuring the last decade technologies have had a significant development in many areas, as military and civil protection, telecommunication and electrical distribution and production. Particularly in the mentioned areas we can find very complex products, with a cycle life generally longer than their components. Companies have thus the need to better manage the replacement of spare parts in order to reduce the holding costs and to satisfy the service level. In this paper authors analyse the state of the art about the spare parts logistic (SPL) problem for products characterized by a long cycle life and by slow moving spare parts subject to obsolescence. A new model to estimate the spare part order level is then proposed and tested on a simulated case
Sustainability of Human-Robot cooperative configurations: Findings from a case study
No full textThis paper proposes an empirical investigation for evaluating the sustainability of different degrees of Human-Robot cooperation (HRC) considering economic, environmental, and social pillars. A connection between human factors and sustainable goals has been defined for integrating human-centricity, sustainability, and Industry 4.0 paradigms. To show how HRC can be implemented sustainably in practice, a combination of multi-criteria technique and case study-based research has been designed. The selected method compares the alternative's performance by combining numerous and conflicting criteria. The case study with a company belonging to the aerospace sector shows how performance changes according to the degree of automation. Results demonstrate that the introduction of cooperation can offer economic benefits linked to productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Positive effects in social sustainability have also been identified in terms of safety and physical ergonomics. However, the presence of the robot could cause work-related stress and decrease the level of mental well-being. Finally, the introduction of HRC slightly affects environmental sustainability, increasing energy consumption, but decreasing waste due to manual errors. This study also helps practitioners in identifying the relevant factors to evaluate sustainability in HRC and provides findings to better understand the benefits and drawbacks of the adoption of HRC in practice
Development of a Production Planning Support System for products with uncertain Cycle Time
No full textA proposal for estimating the order level for slow moving spare parts subject to obsolescence
No full textDuring the last decade technologies have had a significant development in many areas, as military and civil protection,
telecommunication and electrical distribution and production. Particularly in the mentioned areas we can find very
complex products, with a cycle life generally longer than their components. Companies have thus the need to better
manage the replacement of spare parts in order to reduce the holding costs and to satisfy the service level. In this paper
authors analyse the state of the art about the spare parts logistic (SPL) problem for products characterized by a long
cycle life and by slow moving spare parts subject to obsolescence. A new model to estimate the spare part order level is
then proposed and tested on a simulated case
Additive manufacturing in green supply chains: A parametric model for life cycle assessment and cost
No full textThe use of additive manufacturing (AM) can improve the green performance of supply chains. However, adopting a centralized or a decentralized supply chain remains an open issue. A decision support model, that integrates Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies, is proposed in this paper. The lifecycle of a printed product is parametrized depending on strategic decisions that impact economic and environmental sus-tainability at once, i.e., the production strategy, the degree of outsourcing and production decentralization. Cap-ital and variable costs have been modelled by adopting the process-based cost modelling (PBCM) approach. The monetary valuation of life cycle assessment (MLCA) has been used to aggregate different environmental impact categories. The green-ability of compared production scenarios is measured through a dimensionless-aggregated metric that, besides the scenario performance, also consider the weights the decision maker(s) should assign to the sustainability dimensions. A numerical application is carried out by comparing three different scenarios (i.e., centralized, decentralized, and mixed). Regarding the used data, results show that fully decentralizing printed product production by renting production capacity and outsourcing post-processing activities is the greenest solution regardless of the weights given to the economic and environmental dimensions.(c) 2023 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
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