GOR-Publications – serie

The past decade has shown an increasing level of interest, research and application of quantitative models and computer based tools in the process industry. These models and tools constitute the basis of so-called Advanced Planning Systems which have gained considerable attention in practice. In particular, OR methodology has been applied to analyze and support the design of supply networks, the planning and scheduling of operations, and control issues arising in the production of food and beverages, chemicals, pharmaceutical, for instance. This book provides both new insights and successful solutions to problems of production planning and scheduling, logistics and supply chain management. It comprises reports on the state of the art, applications of quantitative methods, as well as case studies and success stories from industry. Its contributions are written by leading experts from academia and business. The book addresses practitioners working in industry as well as academic researchers in production, logistics, and supply chain management.

The modern freight carrier business requires a sophisticated automatic decision support in order to ensure the efficiency and reliability and therefore the survival of transport service providers. This book addresses these challenges and provides generic decision models for the short-term operations planning as well as advanced metaheuristics to obtain efficient operation plans. After a thorough analysis of the operations planning in the freight carrier business, decision models are derived. Their suitability is proven within a large number of numerical experiments, in which a new class of hybrid genetic search approaches demonstrate their appropriateness.

This monograph grew out of my research in the ficld of resourcc-constraincd project scheduling conducted from 1995 to 2004 during my work as teaching assistant and assistant professor at the Institute for Economic Theory and Operations Research of thc Univcrsity of Karlsruhe. The aim of the book is to givc an introduction to quantitative concepts and methods for resource allocation in project managcmcnt with an cmphasis on an ordcr-theoretic framework allowing for a unifying treatment of various problem types. In order to make the work accessible for general readers, the basic concepts nccded arc rcviewed in introductory scctions of the book. Many pcople have contributed to the outcome of this research. First and foremost, I would like to express my deep appreciation to my supervisor P- fessor Klaus Ncumann, who introduced me to the field and the community of project schcduling. I have greatly benefited from his comprehensive sci- tific knowlcdgc and expertise, his continuous encouragement, and his support. During all these years, his departmcnt has bcen a stimulating and attractive place for doing research and teaching in Operations Rcsearch.

The past decade has shown an increasing level of interest, research and application of quantitative models and computer based tools in the process industry. These models and tools constitute the basis of so-called Advanced Planning Systems which have gained considerable attention in practice. In particular, OR methodology has been applied to analyze and support the design of supply networks, the planning and scheduling of operations, and control issues arising in the production of food and beverages, chemicals, pharmaceutical, for instance. This book provides both new insights and successful solutions to problems of production planning and scheduling, logistics and supply chain management. It comprises reports on the state of the art, applications of quantitative methods, as well as case studies and success stories from industry. Its contributions are written by leading experts from academia and business. The book addresses practitioners working in industry as well as academic researchers in production, logistics, and supply chain management.

This book represents the compilation of several research approaches on opera­ tional freight carrier planning carried out at the Chair of Logistics, University of Bremen. It took nearly three years from the first ideas to the final version, now in your hands. During this time, several persons helped me all the time to keep on going and to re-start when I got stuck in a dead end or when I could not see the wood for the trees. I am deeply indebted to them for their encouragement and comments. Prof. Dr. Herbert Kopfer, holder of the Chair of Logistics, introduced me into the field of operational transport planning. He motivated and supervised me. Furthermore, he supported me constantly and allowed me to be as free as possible in my research and encouraged me to be as creative as necessary. In addition, I have to thank Prof. Dr. Hans-Dietrich Haasis, Prof. Dr. Martin G. Mohrle and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Poddig. On behalf of all my colleagues, who supported me in numerous ways, I have to say thank you to Prof. Dr. Dirk C. Mattfeld, Prof. Dr. Christian Bierwirth, Henner Gratz, Prof. Dr. Elmar Erkens, Nadja Shigo and Katrin Dorow. They all helped me even with my most obscure and dubious problems. My family supported me all the time. They always showed me their trust and encouraged me continuously. Special thanks are dedicated to my parents Monika and Heinz-Jiirgen.

This monograph grew out of my research in the ficld of resourcc-constraincd project scheduling conducted from 1995 to 2004 during my work as teaching assistant and assistant professor at the Institute for Economic Theory and Operations Research of thc Univcrsity of Karlsruhe. The aim of the book is to givc an introduction to quantitative concepts and methods for resource allocation in project managcmcnt with an cmphasis on an ordcr-theoretic framework allowing for a unifying treatment of various problem types. In order to make the work accessible for general readers, the basic concepts nccded arc rcviewed in introductory scctions of the book. Many pcople have contributed to the outcome of this research. First and foremost, I would like to express my deep appreciation to my supervisor P- fessor Klaus Ncumann, who introduced me to the field and the community of project schcduling. I have greatly benefited from his comprehensive sci- tific knowlcdgc and expertise, his continuous encouragement, and his support. During all these years, his departmcnt has bcen a stimulating and attractive place for doing research and teaching in Operations Rcsearch.

This book presents models and algorithms for complex scheduling problems. Besides resource-constrained project scheduling problems with applications also job-shop problems with flexible machines, transportation or limited buffers are discussed. Discrete optimization methods like linear and integer programming, constraint propagation techniques, shortest path and network flow algorithms, branch-and-bound methods, local search and genetic algorithms, and dynamic programming are presented. They are used in exact or heuristic procedures to solve the introduced complex scheduling problems. Furthermore, methods for calculating lower bounds are described. Most algorithms are formulated in detail and illustrated with examples. In this second edition some errors were corrected, some parts were explained in more detail, and new material has been added. In particular, further generalizations of the RCPSP, additional practical applications and some more algorithms were integrated.