The allocation of design tolerances between the components of a mechanical assembly and manufacturing tolerances can significantly affect the functionality of products and related production costs. This paper introduces Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) approach to solve the machining tolerance allocation of an overrunning clutch assembly.  The objective is to obtain optimum tolerances of...

Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that studies strategic situations in which participants (players) act rationally in order to maximize their returns (payoffs). As such, game theory provides models of rational behavior (decisionmaking) for strategic interactions. Many types of problems that involve decision strategies for cooperating or non-cooperating participants present a fruitf...

We address the exact resolution of a MINLP model where resources can be activated in order to satisfy a demand (a partitioning constraint) while minimizing total cost. Cost functions are convex latency functions plus a fixed activation cost. A branch and bound algorithm is devised, featuring three important characteristics. First, the lower bound (therefore each subproblem) can be computed in O...

Many models and mechanisms in resource and cost allocation have been developed that are simple and abstract. By means of two case studies, I argue that it is now timely to consider richer models for the fair division of resources and for the allocation of costs. Such models should have features like asynchronicity which reflect more of the true complexity of many fair division and cost allocati...

In this paper, we investigate resource allocation games with machine activation cost when the resources are limited. We take job scheduling for example. Here, we typically have a fixed number m of identical machines. No machines are initially activated and each machine activated incurs a fixed machine activation cost. Jobs are self-interested players who choose machines with the objective of mi...

This article evaluates a firm’s service cost structure and the associated cost allocation methodology and its impact on pricing strategy, which manifests in revenues or market share, profitability, and customer satisfaction. We discuss a cost allocation methodology which will be useful in conjunction with other marketing tools in development of a pricing structure for a firm’s services against ...

This paper considers allocation rules. First, we demonstrate that costs allocated by the Aumann-Shapley and the Friedman-Moulin cost allocation rules are easy to determine in practice using convex envelopment of registered cost data and parametric programming. Second, from the linear programming problems involved it becomes clear that the allocation rules, technically speaking, allocate the non...

We study the complexity of a multilateral negotiation framework in which autonomous agents agree in pairs to exchange resources in order to minimise their individual cost. We are interested in establishing whether an allocation of resources that minimises total cost can be reached from an initial allocation in which one agent holds all the resources and one resource is transferred in each contr...

Consider a manufacturer serving a set of retail stores each of which faces deterministic demands in a finite planning horizon. At the beginning of the planning horizon, the production capacity of the manufacturer is built, followed by production, outsourcing to third party manufacturers if necessary and distribution to the retail stores. Because the retail stores are usually managed by differen...

We consider a situation in which a group of banks consider connecting their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in a network, so that the banks’ customers may use ATMs of any bank in the network. The problem studied is that of allocating the total transaction costs arising in the network, among the participating banks. The situation is modeled as a cooperative game with transferable utility. We pr...