Incomplete contracts may involve a hold-up problem, resulting in inefficient levels of investment. In this paper, we model the phenomenon as a sequential move game with asymmetric information regarding quality. Absence behavioral considerations, the unique Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium implies...

We propose a new class of knapsack problems by assiuning that the sizes of the items to be put into a knapsack are known to be elements 0f a given subset S of the positive integers Z'^. The set S is treated as a parameter. We show that the family of knapsack problems obtained by varying the...

In many applications, robotic cells are used in repetitive production of identical parts. A robotic cell contains two or more robot-served machines. The robot can have single or dual gripper. The cycle time is the time to produce a part in the cell. We consider single part-type problems. Since...

This paper considers the problem of a firm located on a lake in a situation wherein its production process pollutes the lake, while the pollution, in turn, increases the firm's production costs. It is assumed that the pollution caused is proportional to the production rate, that the lake has an...

This paper is concerned with an asymptotic analysis of hierarchical production and setup scheduling in a stochastic manufacturing system consisting of a single failure-prone machine and facing constant demands for a number of products. At any given time the system can only produce one type of...

This paper presents an asymptotic analysis of hierarchical production planning in a manufacturing system with two tandem machines that are subject to breakdown and repair. The system produces a single product, whose rate of demand over time is given to be constant. The problem is formulated as a...

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....

We consider an N-machine flowshop with unreliable machines and bounds on work-in-process. Machine capacities and demand processes are finite-state Markov chains. The problem is to choose the rates of production on the machines over time to minimize the expected discounted costs of production and...

We present some insights obtained from the considerable research that has accumulated in proving that a hierarchical decomposition based on the frequencies of occurence of different types of events in the system results in near-optimal decisions as the rates of some events become large compared...

A number of real world processes can be modelled as exponential decay processes. Examples are: machine replacement, oil well extraction, advertising goodwill, repair and cleaning activities, etc.. In this paper we analyze a series of discounted or undiscounted, deterministic or stochastic...