Technical Sessions – Monday July 11

TA-01 IFORS 2011 - Melbourne
Tuesday, 9:00-10:30
� TA-01
Tuesday, 9:00-10:30
Plenary Hall 3
IFORS Survey on OR Practice 1
Stream: OR Practice
Invited session
Chair: John Ranyard, The Management School, Lancaster University,
Department of Management Science, LA1 4YX, Lancaster,
Lancashire, United Kingdom, jranyard@cix.co.uk
1 - Some Overall Results from the Global OR Practice Survey
John Ranyard, The Management School, Lancaster University,
Department of Management Science, LA1 4YX, Lancaster,
Lancashire, United Kingdom, jranyard@cix.co.uk
IFORS have commissioned a survey of OR practice in member countries, so
as to gain a better understanding of the usage of quantitative tools, techniques
and approaches and their impact on decision-making in organisations, as well
as the background of the OR analysts involved. It is expected that the results
will enable IFORS to improve their support to and promotion of OR in member
countries. Over 250 practitioners from 28 member countries completed a comprehensive
on-line questionnaire and some overall results will be presented.
2 - OR Practice in the United States
Karla Hoffman, Department of Systems Engineering and
Operations Research, George Mason University, Mail Stop 4A6,
4400 University Drive, 22030, Fairfax, Virginia, United States,
khoffman@gmu.edu
We present results from a survey on OR practice that was distributed to a few
of the practice subdivisions within INFORMS. We also describe the recent activities
related to the new theme of "analytic" that has made the sale of OR
activities much easier and understandable to a wider business community.
3 - IFORS OR Practice Survey: Some Key UK Results
John Ranyard, The Management School, Lancaster University,
Department of Management Science, LA1 4YX, Lancaster,
Lancashire, United Kingdom, jranyard@cix.co.uk
Over 80 responses were received from the UK and some key results will be
presented, covering the location of OR services, techniques, methodologies
and software used, barriers to the use of OR and personal education and training
received. Changes compared to a similar survey which was carried out 15
years ago will be highlighted. Some comments on current issues facing OR
practitioners in the UK will be made.
� TA-02
Tuesday, 9:00-10:30
Meeting Room 101
Game Theory Applications in Operations
Management III
Stream: Game Theory
Invited session
Chair: Vincent Knight, School of Mathematics, Cardiff University,
CF24 4AG, Cardiff, United Kingdom, Knightva@cf.ac.uk
1 - A Search Problem on a Finite Network with Traveling
and Examination Costs
Kensaku Kikuta, School of Business Administration, University
of Hyogo, Gakuen-nishi 8-2-1,Nishi-ku, 651-2197, Kobe, Japan,
kikuta@biz.u-hyogo.ac.jp
We analyze mathematically variations of a search problem on a finite network
: There is an immobile hider in a node. A seeker inspects each node until he
finds the hider, traveling along edges. Associated with an inspection of a node
is the inspection cost, and associated with a movement from a node to a node
is a traveling cost. A strategy for the seeker is an ordering of nodes in which
the seeker inspects each node in that order. The seeker wishes to minimize the
sum of these costs which are required to find the hider.
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2 - Sell E-Readers or E-Books? A Competitive Perspective
Lijun Ma, Management School, Shenzhen University, Rm1416,
Arts Building, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China,
lijun.ma@gmail.com, Xiaoying Liang, Houmin Yan
Motivated by observations of the e-book reader market, in this paper we consider
the competition in a market composed of both integrated and unintegrated
firms with vertically complementary and horizontally substitutable products.
Using a stylized game-theoretical model, we find that the orders of access costs,
equilibrium prices, and customer characteristics are all correlated, which is the
case under both duopoly and oligopoly. This reveals strategic positions of different
types of firms in the competitive market.
3 - Analyses of Location-Price Game on Networks with
Stochastic Customer Behavior and its Heuristic Algorithm
Fengmei Yang, Dept. of Mathematics and Informatics, Beijing
University of Chemical Technology, School of Science, 100029,
Beijing, China, yang_fengmei@sina.com
In this paper, a two-stage model is developed to investigate the location strategy
and the commodity pricing strategy for a retail firm that wants to enter a
spatial market with multiple competitive facilities. Expected market shares are
calculated based on the stochastic customer behavior on networks. We provide
a sufficient condition for the existence of equilibrium prices in the price
game for the first time. The existence and uniqueness of the pure strategy Nash
equilibrium price with a specified utility function is proved in the subgame. A
metaheuristic based on Tabu search is proposed.
4 - The Price of Anarchy of Health Care
Vincent Knight, School of Mathematics, Cardiff University,
CF24 4AG, Cardiff, United Kingdom, Knightva@cf.ac.uk, Paul
Harper
It is well observed that individual behavior can have an effect on the efficiency
of queuing systems. In this paper we present a routing game model
for the choices made by individuals when choosing between health care facilities.
These choices take in to account travel distance, facility congestion and
reputation. Results concerning the price of anarchy, an analytical measure of
the inefficiency of choice, are obtained. The theoretical ideas presented are
demonstrated by calculating the price of anarchy for a large case study.
� TA-03
Tuesday, 9:00-10:30
Meeting Room 102
Simulation at Container Terminals
Stream: Meta-heuristics
Invited session
Chair: Carsten Boll, Fachbereich 2, Hochschule Bremerhaven, An
der Karlstadt 8, 27568, Bremerhaven, Bremen, Germany,
cboll@hs-bremerhaven.de
1 - Evaluation of AGV Dispatching Plans in Seaport Container
Terminals using Simulation
Evelina Klerides, Business School, Imperial College London,
Flat 43 Apsley House, 23-29 Finchley Road, NW8 0NY, London,
United Kingdom, e.klerides@hotmail.com, Panagiotis
Angeloudis, Eleni Hadjiconstantinou, Michael Bell
We consider the Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) dispatching problem in
container terminals where vehicles are allowed to carry more than one container
at a time. This paper presents a micro-simulation framework that seeks
to a real-life automated port. The framework validates/evaluates the operational
results obtained from an optimization model designed specifically to find the
optimal solution to the dual-load AGV dispatching problem. We report on various
performance measures associated to container terminals and compare the
results to those obtained using heuristic rules.