We consider a variant of the multidimensional assignment problem (MAP) with decomposable costs in which the resulting optimal assignment is described as a set of disjoint stars. This problem arises in the context of multi-sensor multi-target tracking problems, where a set of measurements,...

For shipbuilding, spatial scheduling and workforce assignment are two important issues for the operation management in block assembly shops. Spatial scheduling is to decide where and when to assemble blocks, while workforce assignment is to assign working teams to the blocks. Traditionally, they...

Optimum reservoir operation is a challenging problem in water resources systems. In this paper, Intelligent Water Drops (IWD) algorithm is applied in a reservoir operation problem. IWD is a population based algorithm and is initially proposed for solving combinatorial problems. The algorithm...

We present ongoing work on the construction of a spatial microsimulation model to assess the influence of demographics on residential heat consumption for Hamburg, Germany. Demographics are important for urban energy planning as: (1) Buildings are becoming more energy-efficient and building...

During the emergency response to mass casualty incidents decisions relating to the extrication, treatment and transporting of casualties are made in a real-time, sequential manner. In this paper we describe a novel combinatorial optimization model of this problem which acknowledges its temporal...

A real life order-picking configuration that requires multiple pickers to cyclically move around fixed locations in a single direction is considered. This configuration is not the same, but shows similarities to, unidirectional carousel systems described in literature. The problem of minimising...

This paper studies the simultaneous dock assignment and sequencing of inbound trucks for a multi-door cross docking operation with the objective to minimize total weighted tardiness, under a fixed outbound truck departure schedule. The problem is newly formulated and solved by six different...

Ant colony system is a well known metaheuristic framework, and many efficient algorithms for different combinatorial optimization problems have been derived from this general framework. In this paper some directions for improving the original framework when a strong local search routine is...

The quadratic assignment problem (QAP) is a challenging combinatorial problem. The problem is NP-hard and in addition, it is considered practically intractable to solve large QAP instances, to proven optimality, within reasonable time limits. In this paper we present an attractive mixed integer...