This paper highlights the potentialities of Data Envelopment Analysis to evaluate the performance of organisations, using the concept of super-efficiency-an extension of DEA which increases its performance-and presents an example from the public sector to illustrate the method. The example selected is that of a school network where a place in a school can be seen as a perishable good, as places...

Generalising the idea of the classical EM algorithm that is widely used for computing maximum likelihood estimates, we propose an EM-Control (EM-C) algorithm for solving multi-period finite time horizon stochastic control problems. The new algorithm sequentially updates the control policies in each time period using Monte Carlo simulation in a forward-backward manner; in other words, the algori...

We consider a service facility system with perishable inventory with finite number of servers. Each server having one perishable item for providing service. The arrival of a customer at the system according to independent Poisson Processes with rate  through a single channel. The service time of the customer is exponentially distributed with mean  1/ and the item in stock has exponential life...

Nowadays, many distribution networks deal with the distribution and storage of perishable products. However, distribution network design models are largely based on assumptions that do not consider time limitations for the storage of products within the network. This study develops a model for the design of a distribution network that considers the short lifetime of perishable products. The mod...

Path-relinking has helped solving deterministic problems by exploring the neighbourhood of elite solutions in an intelligent way. We present an algorithm that combines a mixed-integer linear solver with a truncated pathrelinking method in order to solve two-stage stochastic integer problems with complete recourse and first-stage integer variables. This method takes advantage of a possible scena...

We develop the first approximation algorithm for periodic-review perishable inventory systems with setup costs. The ordering lead time is zero. The model allows for correlated demand processes which generalize the well-known approaches to model dynamic demand forecast updates. The structure of optimal policies for this fundamental class of problems is not known in the literature. Thus, finding ...

s-This paper further extends the existing cost model for a fixed-life perishable product in a two-echelon inventory problem into the net profit model. The extended model is subsequently evaluated by comparing its results with those obtained from OptQuest, a commercial simulationoptimization package. Within a limited but reasonable time, the comparative results do not show a significant improvem...

In this paper we propose a new discrete time discrete state inventory model for perishable items of a single product. Items in stock are assumed to belong to one of a finite number of quality classes that are ordered in such a way that Class 1 contains the best quality and the last class contains the pre-perishable quality. By the end of each epoch, items in each inventory class either stay in ...

With the intensification of global warming and the levy of energy tax, more industries are paying attention to energy saving and reduction of carbon footprint. For the food industry, energy cost in the supply chain of perishable food is quite high because of cold-chain transport and storage. Therefore, the efficacies of cold chain management and inventory control are the key factors that increa...

We provide explicit solutions to life-cycle utility maximization problems simultaneously involving dynamic decisions on investments in stocks and bonds, consumption of perishable goods, and the rental and the ownership of residential real estate. House prices, stock prices, interest rates, and the labor income of the decision-maker follow correlated stochastic processes. The preferences of the ...