Conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) for measuring the relative efficiency of a set of decision-making units (DMUs) requires the observations to have precise values. When observations are imprecise and represented by interval values, the efficiencies are also expected to reflect interval...

Designing optimal products is one of the most critical activities for a firm to stay competitive. Except for genetic algorithms, previous approaches that solve the optimal product line design problem provide the decision maker with a single best solution. Furthermore, they assume a static...

The high cost of a product failure makes it imperative for a company to assess the market penetration of a new product at its early design. In this context, the Optimal Product Line Design problem was formulated thirty five years ago, and remains a significant research topic in the area of...

In this paper we explore whether the incorporation of systematic time series analyses and mathematical optimization procedures in the practical planning process has the potential to improve production program decisions. The cases of four German cash crop farms are investigated over six planning...

We provide results for an efficient analytical valuation of partial moments of the multivariate Gaussian distribution over convex polyhedrons to aid the solution, sensitivity analysis and structural analysis of a large number of two-stage resource acquisition and allocation problems. These...

We consider a production-inventory planning problem with time-varying demands, convex production costs and a warehouse capacity constraint. It is solved by use of the Lagrangian form of the maximum principle. The possible existence of strong decision and forecast horizons is demonstrated. When...

This paper describes a maximum principle for distributed parameter systems, i.e. systems characterized by partial differential equations. The maximum principle is applied to solve the problem of a cattle rancher who must decide the number of cattle in different age groups to be bought and sold...

In this paper, we identify a new class of stochastic Iinear convex optimal control problems, whose solution can be obtained by solving appropriate equivalent deterministic optimal control problems. The term 'linear convex' is meant to imply that the dynamics is linear and the cost function is...

This paper considers a production-inventory problem in which the manufacturer participates in an energy buy-back program, which offers him probabilistic opportunities with rewards for not using electricity. That is, the manufacturer will get paid for stopping production to save on electricity....

In this paper, we treat an optimal control problem of a stochastic two-machine flowshop with machines subject to random breakdown and repair. While the problem is difficult to solve, it can be approximated by a deterministic problem when the rates of machine failure and repair become large....