The assembly-line balancing problem (today SALBP) is a bin-packing problem with precedence constraints, that was invented in the 50s to model and optimize the design of assembly lines. Because early…
When shift scheduling problems become too large to be solved with a single model, an option often chosen by practitioners is to decompose them. Shift-scheduling MIP models contain a very…
Shift-scheduling models are very common in workforce optimization. Employees are scheduled over one or multiple weeks, in order to cover the demand. Each employee has a contract that specifies the…
Workforce scheduling is an essential optimization problem for any business that needs to cope with variable demand, be it during working hours, days of the week or annual seasons. Manufacturing…
We were invited to give a talk about mathematical modeling of optimization problems to 4th year physics students. This material is based on that talk, and therefore intended to beginners…
The quay crane scheduling problem (QCSP) consists in scheduling quay cranes to load and unload containers from ships. Photo by Jacob Meissner on Unsplash Quay crane undoubtedly is the most…
Berth Allocation Problem (BAP) The berth allocation problem assigns arriving ships to a section of the berth (where, when & how long) during enough time for the loading and unloading…
As ship sizes continue raise, ports struggle maintaining and hopefully increasing port operations productivity. The large number of berths, cranes, warehouses and labors they need to handle make the operations…
The Unit Commitment Problem (UCP) The Unit Commitment problem (UCP) consists in deciding which power generators to run, in which periods and at what level in order to satisfy the…
Facility location problem may be the most critical and most difficult in Supply Chain Network Design because the facilities are often fixed and difficult to relocate in the short term.…