Pablo Cortés

University of Seville | US · Departamento de Organización Industrial Y Gestión De Empresas II

Purpose: This article focuses on the problem of deciding the annual investment that a company should allocate to the rehabilitation of its water distribution and sanitation networks. The objective is to find the investment amount necessary to maintain an adequate quality and sustainability of the infrastructure. It is not a simple decision, as ther...

This study focuses on estimating the lead times of various processes in wind tower factories. Accurate estimation of these times allows for more efficient sequencing of activities, proper allocation of resources, and setting of realistic delivery dates, thus avoiding delays and bottlenecks in the production flow and improving process quality and ef...

The unexpected failure of pipes is a problem that is hitting the water networks of many cities around the world. Nowadays, many proposals based on the use of machine learning techniques are emerging to combat this problem. However, most studies focus their efforts on predicting failures in short time periods, usually a year, while longer time perio...

The current requirements of many manufacturing companies, such as the fashion, textile, and clothing industries, involve the production of multiple products with different processing routes and products with short life cycles, which prevents obtaining deterministic setup and pro- cessing times. Likewise, several industries present restrictions when...

This study aims to minimize the travel time in multi-block high-level storage systems considering height level constraints for picking devices to leave aisles. Considering these operating environments, the formulation of minimum travel times between each pair of storage positions is proposed and the picker routing problem (PRP) is solved by means o...

This article solves the order batching, batch assignment, and sequencing problem (JOBASP) given multiple objectives and heterogeneous picking vehicles in multi-parallel-aisle warehouse systems. A multi-objective grouping genetic algorithm (GGA) is developed to minimize total travel time and total tardiness by implementing an encoding scheme where a...

This article aims to improve the secondary distribution process in a mass consumer company implementing technologies, such as transport management system (TMS) to achieve the objectives set by the company. A DMAIC based methodology is proposed to define and solve structured problems related to secondary distribution, following the performance of th...

Sewer networks are mainly composed of pipelines which are in charge of transporting sewage and rainwater to wastewater treatment plants. A failure in a sewer pipe has many negative consequences, such as accidents, flooding, pollution or extra costs. Machine learning arises as a very powerful tool to predict these incidents when the amount of availa...

The decision making of a suitable heating, ventilating and air conditioning system’s set-point temperature is an energy and environmental challenge in our society. In the present paper, a general framework to define such temperature based on a dynamic adaptive comfort algorithm is proposed. Due to the fact that the thermal comfort of the occupants...

The water supply networks of many countries are experiencing a drastic increase in the number of pipe failures. To reverse this tendency, it is essential to optimise the replacement plans of pipes. For this reason, companies demand pioneering techniques to predict which pipes are more prone to fail. In this study, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN)...

The supply chain has become a key element of increasing the productivity and competitiveness of companies. To achieve this, it is essential to implement a strategy based on the use of technologies, which depends on knowledge of the scope and impact of logistics technologies. Therefore, this article aims to identify the main technologies supporting...

Intermodal freight transport consists of using different modes of transport without changing the load unit. This results in a significant reduction in the time that goods spend at intermodal terminals, where transshipment takes place. Drayage refers to the transport of freight on trucks among intermodal terminals, depots, customers and suppliers. I...

In this study, an evolutionary fuzzy system is proposed to predict unexpected pipe failures in water supply networks. The system seeks to underpin the decisions of management companies regarding the maintenance and replacement plans of pipes. On the one hand, fuzzy logic provides high degrees of interpretability over other black box models, which i...

This paper introduces a grouped genetic algorithm (GGA) to solve the order batching and sequencing problem with multiple pickers (OBSPMP) with the objective of minimizing total completion time. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, an OBSPMP is solved by means of GGA considering picking devices with heterogeneous load capacity. For this...

The optimal design of a water supply system is essential to minimize costs as well as to maximize the sustainability of the infrastructure. Moreover, most future problems related to its operation and possible extensions can be significantly reduced at the design stage. The network performance is subject to laws of flow balance and energy conservati...

The continuous development of high-rise buildings around the world requires the installation of efficient elevator systems able to vertically transport the different passengers along the buildings in their daily journeys. Double deck elevators can increase the efficiency of these vertical transportation systems. Double deck elevators consist of two...

This article aims to propose a fuzzy model for closed-loop material requirement planning (MRP) systems considering uncertain parameters like production capacity, on-hand inventory and lead times. For this, a deterministic closed-loop MRP model is proposed, and then fuzzy coefficients in the constraints of the model are used to establish the fuzzy M...

Pilots are essential for the operation of maritime ports and an efficient piloting workforce management is critical to provide quality service to incoming vessels, to comply with the strict labor regulations associated with piloting and to avoid penalties due to delays in service. However, designing labor schedules that meet workforce demand and fu...

Put-away operations typically consist of moving products from depots to allocated storage locations using either operators or Material Handling Equipment (MHE), accounting for important operative costs in warehouses and impacting operations efficiency. Therefore, this paper aims to formulate and solve a Put-away Routing Problem (PRP) in distributio...

The collective concern for global warming is changing the way we behave and we act in our daily life in order to reduce energy consumption and our CO2 footprint. However, since healthier and more comfortable environments are needed, the best solution is a well-balanced relationship between these two issues. The present article exposes a methodology...

Maritime transport is one of the oldest methods of moving various types of goods, and it continues to have an important role in our modern society. More than 20 million containers are transported across the oceans daily. However, this form of transportation is constantly threatened by illegal operations, such as the smuggling of goods or people and...

Las roturas de tuberías en redes de abastecimiento de agua provocan serios problemas para las compañías encargadas de su gestión. Con objeto de reducir el número de roturas inesperadas, se propone un método predictivo de clasificación de las tuberías que utiliza la regresión logística, junto con técnicas avanzadas de procesamiento de datos, como el...

This article describes new minimum travel time formulations for the picker routing problem (PRP) in 3-D warehouses based on real operating conditions, such as height reference levels, to leave aisles and to pick devices with simultaneous and sequential movements. This study validated the proposed formulations through an experimental design, statist...

This paper considers the case study of a smart microgrid district at Graciosa Island in the Canary Islands. The smart energy microgrid district consists of several households and a public use building (school) that includes renewable energy sources (photovoltaic), Li-ion batteries for electric energy storage, domestic hot water heaters acting as th...

Companies in charge of water supply networks are making a huge effort to optimally plan the annual replacements of pipes. This would save costs, enable a higher quality of service and a sustainable management of infrastructure. This study presents a methodology to predict pipe failures in water supply networks. Logistic regression and support vecto...

Drayage is the stage of the intermodal transport that deals with transport of freight on trucks among the intermodal terminal, and customers and suppliers that are located in its hinterland. This work proposes an algorithm based on simulated annealing heuristics to solve the operations of drayage. This algorithm has been used to solve battery probl...

Water supply networks are the infrastructures in charge of transporting water to consumers. The demographic growth of cities together with an increase in pollution implies new challenges in the design and management of these utilities. The intrinsic characteristics of hydraulic systems and the discrete nature of some of their variables make the opt...

En este estudio se utiliza la regresión logística para predecir roturas de tuberías en redes de abastecimiento de agua. Ésta es una técnica que permite resolver problemas de clasificación binaria diferenciando las tuberías que van a rompen de las que no. Con objeto de comprobar la eficacia de esta técnica se hace uso de un histórico de datos refere...

This article presents a genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the picker routing problem in multiple-block warehouses in order to minimize the traveled distance. The GA uses survival, crossover, immigration, and mutation operators, and is complemented by a local search heuristic. The genetic algorithm provides average distance savings of 13.9% when compa...

The complexity of port terminal operations and intermodal transshipments has pushed the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) to assist the multiple stakeholders involved in the multiple decision-making processes. More recently the development of systems based on the Internet of Things (IoT) represents a further step in t...

El transporte vertical es una disciplina que estudia los movimientos de personas en edificios. Los edificios altos se han convertido en una construcción común hoy en día. En dichos edificios, el transporte vertical es un problema que requiere un enfoque sistemático y ordenado. Así, para casos extremos en determinados edificios singulares, la ordena...

The estimation of pollutant emissions related to urban freight activities suffers from the same difficulty faced when trying to estimate the characteristics of individual urban freight routes or demand parameters. The great variety of urban freight practices forces to attain this objective only through strong hypotheses and simplifications. We prop...

This paper deals with the optimization of the operating costs of electricity and heating networks in buildings with distributed energy generation and electric storage via batteries and thermal storage for heating. The problem considers distributed energy sources such as electric grid, renewable sources (including thermal, photovoltaic and wind powe...

This paper deals with the optimisation of the operating costs in a distributed electric and heating energy generation network. The network considers different options to supply the electric and heating demand of a large consumer building: the electricity can be directly bought from the grid, can be taken from renewable energy sources or can be prod...

Indoor comfort has changed over the last years. Firstly, the key was the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) inside a building but lately it shift away from IAQ towards greater expectations related to overall subjects’ comfort. However, there should be a consistent and well-balanced relation between comfort and energy consumption due to the results on the env...

Freight deliveries and sustainable urban development. Urban freight deliveries should be analyzed by focusing on the three sustainability axes: economic, social and environ- mental. Within the scope of sustainable urban development, it is important to develop an urban freight system that is sustainable and efficient, which is extremely complex due...

This paper formulates and solves the picking routing problem for large- and medium-size distribution centres (DCs) considering a set of n products to be collected from m storage locations given a level of inventory and a fleet of heterogeneous material handling equipment. The problem is solved using a generic tabu search (TS) and two hybrid variati...

This paper deals with the car-call allocation problem in vertical transportation in buildings. We have made a wide comparison of different metaheuristic optimization algorithms to identify those with a better performance dealing with the problem. The tested approaches are Differential Evolution (DE)

The use of multi-actor multi-criteria methodologies is widely accepted to evaluate city logistics policies and measures. We have applied this procedure to the proposal of implementation of two alternative measures in a fresh food market in the Seville city center, after gathering all the relevant data from a survey passed to the retailers working i...

Highlights • We describe a new development of a tracking/tracing/management information system • The system is designed for containers in an intermodal corridor • The paper links the impacts of the system with the supply chain requirements • Benefits for the different stakeholders involved are described and discussed Purpose Intermodal transport c...

Este artículo tiene como objetivo comparar la conformación de lotes con ruteo, en la preparación de pedidos respecto al problema HVRP (Heterogeneous Vehicle Routing Problem) basándose en la utilización de una metodología de la revisión sistemática de la literatura. Del análisis comparativo se identifica la necesidad de realizar modificaciones radic...

The ex-ante evaluation of urban freight solutions is a complex task, due to the interference of different stakeholder groups with different views and objectives. The multi-actor multi-criteria methods have developed as a response to this scenario, but the determination of the weights required by them remains an unclear and controversial task. We pr...

Because of its mathematical and computational components, operations research OR is not simple to teach or to learn, despite its innumerable industry applications. However, advanced OR is included in many graduate degrees related to industrial engineering, where students need these techniques to solve complex optimization problems. Faced with the p...

Elevators (also called "lifts" in some locales) are installed in buildings to meet the vertical transportation needs of the building occupants. The total vertical transport capacity of a building is a crucial factor in its success as a working, living, or service facility. Elevators must be easily accessible, readily available, provide quality serv...

This bookseries provides a means for the dissemination of current theoretical and applied research in the areas of Industrial Engineering & Engineering Management. The latest methodological and computational advances that both researchers and practitioners can widely apply to solve new and classical problems in industries and organizations constitu...

The intermodal transport chain can become more efficient by means of a good organisation of the drayage movements. Drayage in intermodal container terminals involves the pick up or delivery of containers at customer locations, and the main objective is normally the assignment of transportation tasks to the different vehicles, often with the presenc...

The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, held from 15 September through 1 October, were a complete success and confirmed the Summer Olympic games as the most important and popular sport event in the world. More than 10000 athletes from 200 countries participated. Millions of visitors were attracted to the host country and billions of people watched the games...

High-rise buildings with a considerable number of elevators represent a major logistical problem concerning saving space and time for economic reasons. For this reason, complex elevator group control systems (EGCSs) are developed in order to manage elevators properly. In this paper, the first entirely dynamic fuzzy logic EGCS to dispatch landing ca...

Road Freight transport is causing a number of social, environmental and economic negative impacts in many cities around the world. Therefore sustainable city logistics must be the solution to the problems of urban centers, with the main objective of researchers reduce these impacts, without penalizing the needs of cities. Cause of this several sust...

Organization Engineering, more commonly referred to as Industrial Engineering in the English-speaking world, is a widespread discipline that covers fields from Economic Analysis to Production Management or Operational Research. Our objective with this paper is to describe the historical evolution of this discipline, star ting from the strive of the...

Distribution problems are of high relevance within the supply chain system. In real life situations various different commodities may flow in the distribution process. Furthermore, the connection between production and demand centres makes use of complex mesh networks that can include diversification constraints to avoid overcharged paths. In addit...

Analyses performed before introducing access time window policies in the center of European cities often do not evaluate the extra costs imposed on carriers from the additional number of vehicles required and increase in tour length. To facilitate this evaluation, we have developed a vehicle routing algorithm that considers the existence of access...

Container terminals (CTs) are designed to provide support for the continuous changes in container ships. The most common schemes used for dock management are based on discrete and continuous locations. In view of the steadily growing trend in increasing container ship size, more flexible berth allocation planning is mandatory. The consideration of...

The city of Seville is currently developing a land-use reorganisation policy aimed at increasing the number of pedestrian spaces. This paper contains the microscopic simulation built to assess one of those pedestrianisation initiatives from the point of view of its effects on traffic flows and, more specifically, freight deliveries. Two different a...

High-rise buildings with a considerable number of elevators represent a major logistic problem concerning saving space and time due to economic reasons. For this reason, complex Elevator Group Control Systems are developed in order to manage the elevators properly. Furthermore, the subject of energy is acquiring more and more industrial relevance e...

The management of fixed-income securities investment portfolios enjoys a long tradition in the capital markets. This paper analyses robust optimisation models as efficient tools for risk management of fixed-income securities. The study includes the analysis of scenario-based optimisation models applied to the portfolio selection and on the basis of...

High-rise buildings require the installation of complex elevator group control systems (EGCSs). In vertical transportation, when a passenger makes a hall call by pressing a landing call button installed at the floor and located near the cars of the elevator group, the EGCS must allocate one of the cars of the group to the hall call. We develop a pa...

Nowadays is very common the presence of tall buildings in the business centres of the main cities of the world. Such buildings require the installation of numerous lifts that are coordinated and managed under a unique control system. Population working in the buildings follows a similar traffic pattern generating situations of traffic congestion. T...

The container terminals (CTs) are designed to provide support to the continuous changes in the containerships. The most common schemes used for dock management are based on discrete and continuous locations. The consideration of continuous location in the CT allows arriving every container ship to the port independently of its size and dimensions....

The objective of our work is to solve the problem of transferring workers from a resort set on two cays (islets sandy) in the Sabana-Camaguey archipelago, north of Cuba, from their home areas to the resort and vice versa. We start with an economic analysis of the possible alternatives to solve the problem. Those that result most favorable economica...

This paper presents a guided and deep introduction to viral systems (VS), a novel bio-inspired methodology based on a natural biological process taking part when the organism has to give a response to an external infection. VS has proven to be very efficient when dealing with problems of high complexity. The paper discusses on the foundations of VS...

Cited By (since 1996):3, Export Date: 7 October 2013, Source: Scopus, doi: 10.1016/j.jocs.2011.12.002, Language of Original Document: English, Correspondence Address: Muñuzuri, J.; School of Engineering, University of Seville, Camino de los Descubrimientos, s/n, 41092 Sevilla, Spain; email: munuzuri@esi.us.es, References: Abramson, D., Bethwaite, B...