The One-Dimensional Cutting Stock Problem consists in cutting long bars into smaller ones, to satisfy customers’ demand, minimizing waste and cost. In this paper the standard problem is extended with the inclusion of additional constraints that are generally neglected in scientific literature, although relevant in many industrial applications. We also modified the standard objective function, by assuming that bars may have a different economical value and a different processing or shipping priority. Moreover, in line with business requirements, among solutions that generate the same cutting waste, we prefer the ones that generate a low number of leftovers, especially if leftovers are long, so that the likelihood of their reuse is high. To solve the problem, we propose a Simulated Annealing based heuristic, which exploits a specific neighbor search. The heuristic is implemented in a parametric way that allows the user to set the priorities of the bars and to choose the specific sub-set of constraints he or she wants to consider. The heuristic is finally tested on many problem instances, and it is compared to three benchmarks and to one commercial software. The outcomes of this comparative analysis demonstrate both its quality and effectiveness.

Safety is a top concern for the civil aviation industry, and the risk of safety accidents will increase due to pilot fatigue. To ensure the safety of civil aviation, this paper proposes a method to solve the crew scheduling problem considering pilot fatigue. In order to reflect individual differences and fatigue levels of pilots, an improved three-stage alertness calculation model is first proposed based on subjective and objective perspectives to represent pilots’ alertness levels and fatigue working duration quantitatively. Then, for the crew scheduling problem considering pilot fatigue, a mixed integer programming model is constructed to simultaneously achieve the optimization objectives of reducing the overall scheduling cost and crew fatigue working duration. Next, since the actual crew scheduling problem is large-scale, a solution algorithm based on a column generation framework is developed to improve the quality and efficiency of solving the large-scale crew scheduling problem. Furthermore, in the case study, we collected actual data from an airline company to validate the effectiveness of our proposed method. Finally, through multiple experimental comparisons and analyses, to balance the two optimization objectives mentioned above, it is more reasonable to handle pilot fatigue working duration with soft constraints. Sensitivity analysis reveals the variation rules of the crew cost and fatigue, providing some valuable managerial insights for the crew scheduling problem considering pilot fatigue.

Data sharing is a critical component in a blockchain traceability platform. Therefore, creating a reasonable incentive mechanism to ensure that all enterprises participate in data sharing is vital for blockchain platforms. Currently, many researchers employ evolutionary game theory to analyze problems related to data sharing. However, evolutionary game theory typically assumes that the population composed of enterprises is mixed uniformly. Enterprises in the manufacturing industry are not uniformly mixed, as they tend to have specific connections with each other due to the size of enterprises and volume of business. Therefore, a networked evolutionary game is introduced to solve this problem. Firstly, an incentive model for enterprises sharing data is established. Then, a scale-free network is employed to simulate the connections between enterprises. To comprehensively consider the individual and group benefits of enterprises in the game, this study designs a strategy update rule for networked evolutionary game based on Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization and Variable Neighborhood Descent algorithm. To tackle the challenge of determining reasonable incentive values in networked evolutionary games, this study proposes a dynamic incentive mechanism based on the Q-Learning algorithm. Finally, the experiments indicate that this method can successfully facilitate the stable involvement of enterprises in data sharing.

The dual point policy is an important policy in the field of China's new energy vehicle industry, various factors such as point trading prices and technological innovation costs were included in the profit game model to explore the effects of cost contract model and revenue contract model on the optimal profit of new energy vehicle supply entities after collaborative decision-making. Research has found that the dual credit policy for China's new energy industry has a promoting effect on collaborative innovation among entities in the new energy vehicle supply chain; Compared with decentralized decision-making situations, the integration of cost sharing contracts or revenue sharing contracts can more effectively stimulate the innovation vitality of new energy battery suppliers and enhance their technological innovation level; Under the cost sharing contract and the benefit sharing contract, the optimal profit after collaborative decision-making between new energy vehicle manufacturers and new energy battery suppliers is greater than the optimal profit during decentralized decision-making, while the optimal profit of new energy vehicle supply chain entities under the benefit sharing contract is slightly higher than the optimal profit of new energy vehicle supply chain entities under the cost sharing contract.

In the contemporary era, green development has become integral to modern industrial supply chains. Accelerating the green transformation of the supply chain in the express delivery industry poses a significant challenge in China. To address this challenge, we establish a trilateral evolutionary game model that considers the interdependent constraints involving the government, vehicle suppliers, and courier companies. This model aims to explore the optimal stable decisions for each stakeholder and the entire supply chain system. Through numerical simulations, we analyze the impact of key parameters on the stability of strategies and find that there are four Evolutionary Stable Strategies (ESS) in the system. Economic factors play a dual role: income-related factors encourage the adoption of green strategies by stakeholders, whereas cost-related factors extend the time required for stakeholders to transition to green strategies. For sustained production and utilization of new energy vehicles, the government must utilize a balanced system of rewards and penalties effectively. Vehicle suppliers and courier companies should collaborate for mutually beneficial outcomes, jointly fostering the green transformation of the supply chain with a focus on cost reduction and efficiency improvement. This study offers theoretical insights and methodological support for decision-makers in green supply chain management.

It is crucial to identify alternative energy sources owing to the ever-increasing demand for energy and the other environmental problems associated with using fossil fuels. Biomass as a source of bioenergy is considered a promising alternative to fossil fuels. This study aims to optimize the biomass supply chain by developing an integrated model incorporating typical tactical supply chain decisions based on market or demand selection decisions. To this end, a novel mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is proposed to maximize the profit of the corresponding biomass supply chain and to commercialize electricity production by selecting electricity demand and making supply chain decisions regarding power plant operations, biomass feedstock purchase and storage, and biomass transport trucks. Owing to the intricacy of the MILP model, a fix-and-optimize-based solution strategy is developed and validated by applying it to several instances of a real-world case study. The results demonstrate that the proposed strategy can significantly reduce computational time while preserving high solution quality. Additionally, it helps improve planning and decision-making as it reveals the effect of essential biomass logistics characteristics on routing outcomes.

Helicopters and drones are widely used in military and post-disaster reconnaissance. But less attention has been paid to collaborative reconnaissance between the two, especially when drones can be launched and retrieved multiple times. We propose a synchronous routing problem of helicopter and heterogeneous multi-drone for reconnaissance, which is a new variant of the orienteering problem (OP), where the drones can visit multiple mission nodes and can reconnoiter the retrieval nodes in a single trip, with the goal of maximizing the information collected. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model, and then an adaptive simulated annealing algorithm (A-SA) is designed to solve the problem. Specifically, a universal high-efficiency heuristics solution evaluation method based on segment sorting is proposed. The time complexity of this method is O(n). The numerical experiments illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of the algorithm. The results also show that allowing the drones to conduct reconnaissance on the retrieval nodes can positively impact the solution.

When making a batch production decision for a buyer-vendor coordination system, the management must simultaneously consider the operating expenses incurred in in-house manufacturing and inventory, finished goods’ shipping, and stock holding at the retailer end. Achieving the operational goals of desirable quality, minimal production disruption, and shortening fabrication time help minimize overall in-house operating costs and maximize customer satisfaction. This work builds an operating cost minimization model for buyer-vendor coordination batch system with scrap, breakdowns, overtime, multi-shipment, and an external source to assist the management in optimizing their production-delivery plan. Removing inevitable scrap items ensures product quality, and correction action on stochastic equipment breakdown prevents unacceptable production delays. Implementing partial overtime and adopting an external source expedites in-house manufacturing time. Model construction and cost analysis enable us to decide the operating expense function. Then, we verify the function’s convexity and decide our model’s best manufacturing runtime with the differential calculus and a proposed algorithm. Furthermore, the numerical demonstrations are used to exhibit our work’s applicability and show what kinds of crucial in-depth information can be disclosed and made accessible to the production planners for their decision-making.

The planning of charging infrastructure is crucial to developing electric vehicles. Planning for charging stations requires considering several variables, including building costs, charging demand, and coverage levels. It might be advantageous to use a multi-objective optimization method based on the NSGA-II. We need to address the current problems in choosing the location of electric vehicle charging stations. Firstly, urban land use is divided into five functional areas, and the TF-IDF algorithm is applied to the division of functional areas. A combined clustering algorithm is proposed to cluster POIs in functional areas into several clusters and determine the cluster centers as charging demand points. We Analyze charging practices and travel patterns of electric car users, fit the charging likelihood of various functional regions, and calculate the charging demand of each charging demand point in the study area. Introduce the NSGA-II algorithm and consider the charging station's progressive coverage to fit the actual area covered by the charging station.Taking the maximization of system benefits and the maximization of the minimum coverage level as the optimization objectives to carry out multi-objective optimization. Finally, we take the charging station planning in the urban area of Hohhot as an example and provide different site selection planning schemes. The planning schemes for different numbers of charging stations are analyzed to obtain a charging station planning scheme that takes into account both objectives.

Timely and cost-effective supply of spare parts is the main purpose of spare parts inventory management and substitution is an effective way to fulfill demand on time. However, direct substitution of spare parts is not suitable for the high-tech industries due to the ever-changing nature of the product structures. Hence, parts should be transformed to be used as substitutes. This paper provides a novel spare parts inventory control model for the high-tech industries. In the proposed model, part transformation-based substitution is considered and the near-optimal values of spare part inventory levels (s, S) that minimize total cost are determined by using a simulated annealing-based simulation optimization approach. Computational analyses are performed for a hypothetical inventory system by considering transformation and no-transformation cases. The results reveal that transformation is very useful for the companies who endure long production lead times and high penalty costs associated with backorders.