Jatinder N. D. Gupta

• University of Alabama in Huntsville

In this article, maintenance operations were incorporated to the sequence-dependent setup blocking flow shop to minimise total completion time subject to total maintenance costs. A mixed integer linear programming and procedures to incorporate maintenance to job sequence were developed. A constructive heuristic and three metaheuristics, greedy rand...

Bat algorithm (BA) is one of the promising metaheuristic algorithms. It proved its efficiency in dealing with various optimization problems in diverse fields, such as power and energy systems, economic load dispatch problems, engineering design, image processing and medical applications. Thus, this review introduces a comprehensive and exhaustive r...

While solving the shunting scheduling of EMU first-level maintenance (SSEFM), most existing literature assumed a single maintenance route for all trains and considered only a through depot. It neglects the problem-specific characteristics in terms of varied maintenance routes and a stub-end depot, causing the infeasibility of the generated schedule...

The intermittent nature of renewable sources, uncertain demand load, and the location of microgrids cause challenges for the proper energy balance between supply and demand. To overcome the issues caused by such challenges and to be economically efficient while minimizing environmental impacts, microgrid design with renewable energy sources has rec...

Although some uncertainty factors can occur in many practical environments, customer order scheduling problems involving two agents in such uncertain environments have not received attention in the current literature. Motivated by this observation, we address a two-agent customer order scheduling problem where various customer orders have scenario-...

This paper investigates the problem of scheduling jobs on parallel batch processing machines with incompatible job families, non-identical job sizes, arbitrary job release times, and machine capacity constraints. A mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is established to minimize makespan. A lower bound is proposed to test the solution quali...

Supplier training to develop and improve supplier capabilities to meet the needs of the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) is necessary for supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. In the absence of any comprehensive model for supplier training need assessment and measurement, in this paper, we first propose a supplier training model and the...

Over the past ten years, fossil fuel sources, particularly coal, dominate global electricity generation. With increasing concerns of large pollution emissions from coal-fired power plants and world-wide commitment to environmental change, clean and renewable energy has begun to surge. However, while the installation of renewable energy technology s...

This research discusses the sequence of inbound and outbound aircrafts on a mixed operation single runway at an airport. Influenced by the climate, the target airport cannot meet landing conditions. As a result, aircrafts have to land at other nearby airports. Since the sequence for considering both normal and alternate aircrafts arriving in a fixe...

This paper studies a robust (min–max regret) single machine scheduling problem with uncertain processing times represented by interval data. The objective is to obtain robust sequences of jobs that minimize the absolute deviation of total tardiness from the optimal solution under the worst-case scenario. The problem is first formulated as a mixed-i...

Recently, finding solutions to assembly flowshop scheduling problems is a topic of extensive discussion in research communities. While existing research assumes that job processing times are constant numbers, in several practical situations, due to several external factors like machine breakdowns, working environment changes, worker performance ins...

In this paper, we investigate a supply chain involving one risk-neutral supplier and one risk-averse retailer, where the retailer adopts the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) criterion as his performance measure. To hedge against high risk, the retailer purchases call options from the supplier to adjust his firm orders. We derive the optimal order a...

The number of evidences found in a digital crime scene has burgeoned significantly over the past few years. In addition, the demand for delivering accurate results within a given time deadline has increased. The major challenges coinciding with these aforementioned objectives are to investigate the right set of evidences and to allocate appropriate...

This paper investigates the ability of a combined buy-back (BB) and revenue sharing (RS) contract to improve the efficiency of a supply chain involving a risk-neutral supplier and a risk-averse retailer facing stochastic demand. We show that the combined contract can coordinate the supply chain under mild conditions. Further, the effects of risk av...

For effective modelling of flowshop scheduling problems, artificial neural networks (ANNs), due to their robustness, parallelism and predictive ability have been successfully used by researchers. These studies reveal that the ANNs trained with conventional back propagation (CBP) algorithm utilising the gradient descent method are commonly applied t...

In this paper, preventive maintenance (PM) operations are incorporated as a constraint to the m-machine no-wait flow shop problem with dependent-sequence setup times and makespan minimization scheduling problem. PM are based on the concept of flexible and diverse maintenance levels (ML). Flexibility means that PM activities can be carried out in ot...

Highlights • We examine a scheduling problem in production of wafer fabrication. • We develop a mathematical model to describe and solve the problem. • We propose three heuristics with the worst-case performance ratio 3/2. • We compare the performance our proposed heuristics with two existing metaheuristics. • Computational results show that the pr...

This article considers a single machine scheduling problem with batch setups, positional deterioration effects, and multiple optional rate-modifying activities to minimize the total completion time. This problem is formulated as an integer quadratic programming problem. In view of the complexity of optimally solving this problem, a two-phase heuris...

In this paper, we propose an improved cuckoo search algorithm (ICSA) to minimize makespan for the identical parallel-machine scheduling problem. Starting with an initial population of schedules generated by using the longest processing time (LPT) rule and the job-interchange mechanism, we select the best schedule from this population and then execu...

In this article, the impact of preventive maintenance policies on the constructive heuristics performance for the no-wait flow-shop problem with total flow-time minimization is evaluated. The main constructive heuristics for the m-machine no-wait flow-shop scheduling problem with total flow-time minimization are compared through computational exper...

We study a single machine scheduling problem (SMSP) with uncertain job release times (JRTs) under the maximum waiting time (MWT) criterion. To deal with the uncertainty, a robust model is established to find an optimal schedule, which minimises the worst-case MWT (W-MWT) when JRTs vary over given time intervals. Although infinite possible scenarios...

Technical solutions to security have been suggested but found lacking and it has been recognized that security is a people issue as well, and behavioral research on information security is critical. Individual learning about cybersecurity is not formal and linear, but complex and network based. In this paper we develop a model of how social media c...

This paper addresses a batch scheduling problem in flow shop production systems, where job families are formed based on setup similarities. In order to improve setup efficiency, we consider batching decisions in our solution procedure. Due to its high practical relevance, the batch availability assumption is also adopted in this study. In the prese...

In-deep method, which stores fast-turnover unit-loads in front of slow-turnover unit-loads, is effective for the storage assignment in flow-rack automated storage and retrieval systems with class-based storage policy. In this paper, an adaption of In-deep method and a Modi-InDeep method are proposed. Experimental results demonstrate that the adapti...

This paper studies the problem of scheduling three-operation jobs in a two-machine flowshop subject to a predetermined job processing sequence. Each job has two preassigned operations, which are to be performed on their respective dedicated machines, and a flexible operation, which may be processed on either of the two machines subject to the proce...

The proposed security development lifecycle (SecDLC) model delivers a perpetual cycle of information security management and refinement. Using real-world examples, the authors show how SecDLC ensures the goals of preserving, monitoring, and improving security practices, policies, and standards in private and public sectors. The authors describe the...

Technical solutions to security have been suggested but found lacking and it has been recognized that security is a people issue as well, and behavioral research on information security is critical. Individual learning about cybersecurity is not formal and linear, but complex and network based. In this paper we develop a model of how social media c...

Process flexibility, where a plant is able to produce different types of products, is introduced to mitigate mismatch risk caused by demand uncertainties. The long chain design proposed by Jordan and Graves in 1995 has been shown to be able to reap most benefits of full-flexibility structure (where each plant is able to produce all products) in bal...

We consider the scheduling problem of a manufacturer that has to process a set of jobs on identical parallel machines where jobs can only be delivered at a given number of delivery dates and the total tardiness is to be minimized. In order to avoid tardiness, jobs have to be both, processed and delivered before or at their due dates. Such settings...

Due to its practical relevance, the flowshop group scheduling problem has received much attention in the academic and practice-oriented literature. As machines are grouped to cells and parts to part families, this problem is also known as cellular manufacturing scheduling. Group scheduling is characterized by sequencing tasks on two levels: on the...

This paper proposes new block properties for the flowshop scheduling problem with blocking to minimise makespan. A pruning procedure based on these proposed properties is used in the construction phase of an iterated greedy algorithm to decrease the total number of solutions to be examined to find an optimal schedule. Computational results using Ta...

Flow-rack is a multi-deep rack containing multi-row and multi-column slope bins. Traditionally, bins slope in the same direction in a flow-rack to make unit-loads slide from the storage face to the retrieval face driven by gravity, which cause unit-loads are stored to the storage face and retrieved from the retrieval face. In this paper, a bi-direc...

This paper proposes a Tabu-mechanism improved iterated greedy (TMIIG) algorithm to solve the no-wait flowshop scheduling problem with a makespan criterion. The idea of seeking further improvement in the iterated greedy (IG) algorithm framework is based on the observation that the construction phase of the original IG algorithm may not achieve good...

This paper examines the parallel-machine capacitated lot-sizing and scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times, time windows, machine eligibility and preference constraints. Such problems are quite common in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. In particular, this paper pays special attention to the chipset production in the semico...

Sequencing of storages and retrievals is an important topic in the automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), which largely influences the throughput performance and the operational cost of an AS/RS. In this paper, the problem of sequencing the storages and retrievals in a flow-rack AS/RS with duration-of-stay storage policy is analysed and a...

This paper focuses on the permutation flowshop group scheduling problem to minimise makespan, which is typically found in flowline manufacturing cells. In contrast to classical flowshop scheduling, it is characterised by a scheduling task at two levels: on the one hand, jobs within part families and on the other hand, a number of part families have...

For the minimisation of total tardiness in no-wait flowshops, objective incremental properties are investigated in this paper to speed up the evaluation of candidate solutions. To explore the properties, we introduce a new concept of sensitive jobs and identify through experiments that the proportion of such jobs is very small. Instead of evaluatin...

This paper considers the flowline manufacturing cell scheduling problem (FMCSP) with sequence-dependent family setup times (SDFSTs) for total tardiness and mean total flowtime minimization. Based on the mathematical model of this problem, a hybrid harmony search (HHS) is proposed. One-point crossover operator that is commonly used in genetic algori...

In this paper, Trajectory Scheduling Methods (TSMs) are proposed for the permutation flowshop scheduling problem with total tardiness minimization criterion. TSMs belong to an iterative local search framework, in which local search is performed on an initial solution, a perturbation operator is deployed to improve diversification, and a restart poi...

Supplier innovation can contribute to a company's success, not only through cost savings, but also through revenue improvements by means of a higher chargeable price or the attraction of more customers. Although the demonstration of the measurable benefits (cost and revenue effects) from supplier innovation has been suggested in the literature, no...

Extreme learning machines (ELMs) have proven to be efficient and effective learning mechanisms for pattern classification and regression. However, ELMs are primarily applied to supervised learning problems. Only a few existing research papers have used ELMs to explore unlabeled data. In this paper, we extend ELMs for both semi-supervised and unsupe...

This paper addresses the flow shop batching and scheduling problem where sequence-dependent family setup times are present and the objective is to minimize makespan. We consider violating the group technology assumption by dividing product families into batches. In order to reduce setup times, inconsistent batches are formed on different machines,...

In this paper, we propose a combined methodology for the selection of distribution centres (DCs) by integrating and balancing economic, environmental and social sustainability aspects. The analytic network process (ANP) permits to systematically evaluate possible DCs on the basis of a situation-specific decision structure. A systematic development...

Prognostic distance is the time interval needed to gather information to predict a future failure and to take appropriate action. Within the calculated prognostic distance, there is an increased accuracy of a system׳s failure prediction. In such situations, finding an optimal prognostic distance is important to decrease total cost related to the ma...

In XaaS Clouds, resources as services (e.g., Infrastructure, Platform and Software as a Service) are sold to applications such as scientific and big data analysis workflows. Candidate services with various configurations (CPU type, memory size, number of machines and so on) for the same task may have different execution time and cost. Further, some...

This paper considers the workflow scheduling problem in utility and cloud computing. It deals with the allocation of tasks to suitable resources so as to minimize total rental cost of all resources while maintaining the precedence constraints on one hand and meeting workflow deadlines on the other. A Mixed Integer programming (MILP) model is develo...

This paper considers the workflow scheduling problem in Clouds with the hourly charging model and data transfer times. It deals with the allocation of tasks to suitable VM instances while maintaining the precedence constraints on one hand and meeting the workflow deadline on the other. A bi-direction adjust heuristic (BDA) is proposed for the consi...

This paper proposes a penalty-shift-insertion (PSI)-based algorithm for the no-wait flow shop scheduling problem to minimize total flow time. In the first phase, a penalty-based heuristic, derived from Vogel’s approximation method used for the classic transportation problem is used to generate an initial schedule. In the second phase, a known solut...

Forensic investigation refers to the use of science and technology in the process of investigating a crime scene so as to prove that the perpetrator has committed crime in a court of law. There is a need to collect and investigate evidences that are closely related to the nature of the crime in order to achieve the maximum overall effectiveness. Th...

This paper examines the capacitated lot-sizing and scheduling problem (CLSP) with sequence-dependent setup times, time windows, machine eligibility and preference constraints. Such a problem frequently arises in the semiconductor manufacturing industry by which this paper is motivated. A mixed integer programming (MIP) model is constructed for the...

With the rapid development of economy and society in China, water shortage and water pollution have become more serious. As a result, water resource conflicts have become prominent problems in water resources management of China. The water resource conflicts are caused by such factors as inadequate water quantity, poor water quality and improper ti...

In this paper, the m-machine no-wait flowshop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times is considered to minimize the makespan. According to the problem characteristics, the increment properties of some fundamental operators of algorithms are analyzed. Two increment-based methods FSP (fittest swap points) and FMP (fittest move points)...

This paper proposes a three-phase algorithm (TPA) for the flowshop scheduling problem with blocking (BFSP) to minimize makespan. In the first phase, the blocking nature of BFSP is exploited to develop a priority rule that creates a sequence of jobs. Using this as the initial sequence and a variant of the NEH-insert procedure, the second phase gener...

Meta-heuristics that attempt to obtain (near) global optimal solutions of NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems generally require diversification to escape from local optimality. One way to achieve diversification is to utilize the multi-start hill climbing strategy. By combining the respective advantages of the multi-start hill climbing stra...

This study is an interdisciplinary attempt to explore a possible assessment of the quality of production and service-centered schedules prepared for flowshops and jobshops. The inherent problems are too complex computationally and frequently require heuristic or metaheuristic methods to solve them. This work borrows from the rich EVT-based techniqu...

This study is an interdisciplinary attempt to explore a possible assessment of the quality of production and service-centered schedules prepared for flowshops and jobshops. The inherent problems are too complex computationally and frequently require heuristic or metaheuristic methods to solve them. This work borrows from the rich EVT-based techniqu...

This research is an attempt to develop a new technique for assessing the quality of production and service-centered schedules proposed by various means. Many scheduling methods aim at minimizing throughput time or makespan in production shops, hospitals, airports, and servers in communication networks, etc. Some methods also attempt to optimize som...

Motivated by a real-life scheduling problem in a steel wire factory in China, this paper considers the single machine scheduling problem with sequence-dependent family setup times to minimize maximum lateness. In view of the NP-hard nature of the problem, structural (dominance and neighbourhood) properties of the problem are described and used in t...

In implementing performance-based logistics (PBL), the need for several resources like inventory investment decreases. Therefore, the contractor's profit, which was based on the level of these resources, may decrease. Therefore, a contractor may have disincentives to implement and use PBL. One way to handle such a situation is to develop financial...

Through the use of an effective simulated annealing algorithm, this paper presents an extensive computational investigation concerning the performance evaluation of non-permutation vs. permutation schedules for the flowline manufacturing cell with sequence dependent setup times. The results show that there are significant improvements made by using...

Many organizations use a single estimate of Cp and/or Cpk for process benchmarking, without considering the sampling variability of the estimators and how that impacts the probability of meeting minimum index requirements. Lower confidence limits have previously been determined for the Cp and Cpk indices under the standard assumption of independent...

Evaluation of the overall effectiveness of decision support systems (DSS) has been a research topic since the early 1980s. As artificial intelligence methods have been incorporated into systems to create intelligent decision support systems (IDSS), researchers have attempted to quantify the value of the additional capabilities. Despite the useful a...

This paper proposes a simulated annealing-based meta-heuristic to minimise makespan in a flowshop manufacturing cell with sequence-dependent family setup times. To escape from local minima, Cauchy function – rather than the Boltzmann function – is used during the annealing process. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed simulated annealin...

Flowshop scheduling problems with setup times arise naturally in many practical situations. This paper provides a review of static and deterministic flowshop scheduling research involving machine setup times. The literature is classified into four broad categories, namely sequence independent job setup times, sequence dependent job setup times, seq...

The makespan distribution of permutation flowshop schedules has been a topic of debate for almost fifty years. Many researchers have confirmed or doubted the famous claim that the makespan distribution of permutation flowshop schedules is asymptotically normal if the number of jobs is sufficiently large. This paper theoretically and empirically inv...

This paper considers the problem of scheduling n jobs on a single machine where the job value deteriorates with its starting time. The objective of the problem is to maximize the cumulative value of all jobs. The problem is motivated from the real-life applications, such as movie scheduling, remanufacturing of high-technology products, web object t...

Healthcare organizations are facing many challenges in the 21s t Century due to changes taking place in global healthcare systems. Spiraling costs, financial constraints, increased emphasis on accountability and transparency, changes in education, growing complexities of biomedical research, new partnerships in healthcare and great advances in IT s...

This paper considers the problem of scheduling a given number of jobs on a specified number of identical parallel machines to minimize total tardiness. In view of its NP-hard nature, we propose a new heuristic approach which is general enough for solving several important types of parallel-machine scheduling problems. Consequently, we develop and e...

We study the benefits of coordinated decision making in a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer, a distributor, and several retailers. The distributor bundles finished goods produced by the manufacturer and delivers them to the retailers to meet their demands. The distributor is responsible for managing finished goods inventory. An optimal prod...

This paper presents various Tabu Search (TS) based meta-heuristics for scheduling the part families and jobs within each family in a flowline manufacturing cell (also called a flowshop) with sequence dependent family setup times to minimize makespan. Concepts of Elitism and the acceptance of worse moves from simulated annealing (SA) are examined in...

We address the scheduling problem with the following characteristics: (i) there is a single machine available, (ii) the machine has limited capacity, and (iii) job value deteriorates with time. The problem is motivated from several real world situations, such as, downloading process of web pages, and scheduling of multiplexes. Since the problem is...

This paper considers the problem of scheduling a given number of jobs on a single machine to minimize total earliness and tardiness when family setup times exist. The paper proposes optimal branch-and-bound algorithms for both the group technology assumption and if the group technology assumption is removed. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to sol...

The past few years have seen a rise in the number of companies’ embracing e-commerce technologies in developing countries and the volume of e-commerce has been growing. However, as compared to developed nations, developing countries still have been lacking in e-commerce. This chapter identifies some of the reasons that may be responsible for lack o...

The ability to perform E-Commerce over the Internet has become the driver of the new digital economy. As it has opened up opportunities for businesses and consumers to conduct online transactions on a 24/7 basis, at the same time, it has also opened new opportunities for hackers to exploit the medium for nefarious cyber attacks. This paper discusse...

The purpose of the information security policy is to establish an organization-wide approach to prescribe mechanisms that help identify and prevent the compromise of information security and the misuse of organization’s data, applications, networks, and computer systems to define mechanisms that protect the organization from its legal and ethical r...

Healthcare organizations are facing many challenges in the 21s t Century due to changes taking place in global healthcare systems. Spiraling costs, financial constraints, increased emphasis on accountability and transparency, changes in education, growing complexities of biomedical research, new partnerships in healthcare and great advances in IT s...

One of the key factors that distinguishes the intelligent business enterprise of the 21st century is the emphasis on knowledge and information. Unlike businesses of the past, the fast, high-tech, and global emphasis of businesses today requires the ability to capture, manage, and utilize knowledge and information in order to improve efficiency, bet...

Healthcare organizations are facing many challenges in the 21st Century due to changes taking place in global healthcare systems. Spiraling costs, financial constraints, increased emphasis on accountability and transparency, changes in education, growing complexities of biomedical research, new partnerships in healthcare and great advances in IT su...