A Problem-Specific and Effective Metaheuristic for Flexibility Design

Jörn Grahl (), Michael Schneider and David Francas
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Jörn Grahl: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Dept. of Information Systems & Business Administration Mainz School of Management and Economics
Michael Schneider: Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Information Systems and Operations Research Department
David Francas: Universität Mannheim, Chair of Logistics and Supply Chain Management

No 1001, Working Papers from Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Abstract: Matching uncertain demand with capacities is notoriously hard. Operations managers can use mix-flexible resources to shift excess demands to unused capacities. To find the optimal configuration of a mix-flexible production network, a flexibility design problem (FDP) is solved. Existing literature on FDPs provides qualitative structural insights, but work on solution methods is rare. We contribute the first metaheuristic which integrates these structural insights and is specifically tailored to solve FDPs. Our genetic algorithm is compared to commercial solvers on instances of up to 15 demand types, resources, and 500 demand scenarios. Experimental evidence shows that in the realistic case of flexible optimal configurations, it dominates the comparison methods regarding runtime and solution quality.

Keywords: Flexibility; Metaheuristic; Network Design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2010-01-28, Revised 2010-01-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp
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https://download.uni-mainz.de/RePEc/pdf/Discussion_Paper_1001.pdf First version, 2010 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jgu:wpaper:1001

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