Browsing by Author "Huang, Kuancheng"

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A continuous berth template design model with multiple wharfs
(2016)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Suprayogi
;
Ariantini
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
Berth planning plays an important role in improving the efficiency of a container terminal. This study focuses on the berth template problem (BTP), which determines the berthing windows of the calling ships within a planning horizon (e.g. a week) in a cyclical way. As a mid-term tactical decision problem, BTP provides the decision support for a terminal operator to negotiate the contracts with the shipping lines. This study develops an integer programming (IP) model aiming to minimize the total deviation, given the ship-dependent target times preferred by the shipping lines. To validate the model and illustrate the benefits of its use, we perform a numerical experiment based on operational data of a specific container terminal in Southeast Asia. Two IP-based heuristic methods are developed to take into account the decision framework of terminal operators in reaction to demand increases. The experiment results indicate that the model and the solution approaches can enhance the resource utilization and operational efficiency of container terminals.
A decision model for last-mile delivery planning with crowdsourcing integration
(2019-09-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Ardiansyah, Muhammad Nashir
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
Crowdsourced transportation has been playing a more important role when faced with the growing demand for last-mile delivery, mainly due to the booming e-commerce. Crowdsourced delivery offers greater flexibility and requires less capital investment than traditional outsourcing approaches. This study deals with the planning of the last-mile delivery with partial crowdsourcing integration, in which crowdsourcing helps to manage the delivery from a transfer point to final customer locations. The decision involves several basic questions, including which customer is to be outsourced, by which outsourcing partner, and at which transfer point. The decision problem is formulated as a mixed integer programing (MIP) model. In addition, a heuristics algorithm has been designed to handle large-scale problems. Based on the numerical experiment, the heuristics algorithm can generate a good quality solution within an acceptable computation time. In general, this study shows that well-planned crowdsourcing integration can take advantage of the flexibility and cost saving of crowdsourcing for last-mile delivery.
A dynamic programming algorithm based on expected revenue approximation for the network revenue management problem
(2011-05-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Liang, Yu-Tung
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
Since American Airlines successfully applied revenue management (RM) to raise its revenue, RM has become a common technique in the airline industry. Due to the current hub-and-spoke operation of the airline industry, the focus of RM research has shifted from the traditional single-leg problem to the network-type problem. The mainstream approaches, bid price and virtual nesting, are faced with some limitations such as inaccuracy due to their suboptimal nature and operation interruption caused by the required updates. This study developed an algorithm to generate a seat control policy by approximating the expected revenue function in a dynamic programming (DP) model. In order to deal with the issue of dimensionality for the DP model in a network context, this study used a suitable parameterized function and a sampling concept to achieve the approximation. In the numerical experiment, the objective function value of the developed algorithm was very close to the one achieved by the optimal control. We believe that this approach can serve as an alternative to the current mainstream approaches for the network RM problem for airlines and will provide an inspiring concept for other types of multi-resource RM problems. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A Framework and Models for Evaluating the Multifare Dynamic Pricing Mechanism of Low-cost Carriers
(2013-06-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Peng, Yi-Ya
;
Wu, I-Wen
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
In general, traditional airlines (legacy airlines or full-service airlines) develop multifare mechanisms and rely on seat inventory control to make quantity-based decisions. On the other hand, low-cost carriers (LCCs) tend to adopt the single-fare system and dynamically adjust the price. Nonetheless, more and more LCCs have begun to offer multiple-fare classes so as to take advantage of market segmentation and price discrimination. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of various revenue management (RM) mechanisms, the concept of willingness-to-pay is applied to model the customer choice with respect to RM control decisions. Dynamic programming-based models are then developed to provide a unified framework to evaluate the dynamic pricing mechanism of LCCs against the traditional seat inventory control policy that makes the open/close decisions of the fare classes with predetermined prices. Based on the numerical experiment, it is found that the former results in significantly higher revenue than the latter.
A Lagrangian Relaxation based heuristic for the consolidation problem of airfreight forwarders
(2007-08-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Chi, Wenhou
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
International air cargo is an operation-intensive industry, involving complex procedures and many players. As an important player, airfreight forwarders need to consolidate the collected goods skillfully in order to satisfy the requirements of the shippers and, at the same time minimize the expense charged by the airlines. However, the air cargo rate structure is very complicated, making the consolidation a difficult mixed-integer programming problem for the airfreight forwarder. In this paper, the consolidation problem is first transformed into a well-known set covering problem by treating a feasible consolidated shipment as a set. Lagrangian Relaxation is used as the backbone to develop a recursive heuristic algorithm. Based on the numerical experiment, the heuristic algorithm generates solutions very close to optimality. In particular, a sensitivity analysis is performed with respect to the degree of concavity. The results suggest that the solution algorithm can be used as a core module of the decision support system for air cargo consolidation. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A linear programming-based method for the network revenue management problem of air cargo
(2015-10-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Lu, Heng
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
One critical operational issue of air cargo operation faced by airlines is the control over the sales of their limited cargo space. Since American Airlines\' successful implementation in the post-deregulation era, revenue management (RM) has become a common practice for the airline industry. However, unlike the air passenger operation supported by well-developed RM systems with advanced decision models, the decision process in selling air cargo space to freight forwarders is usually based on experience, without much support from optimization techniques. This study first formulates a multi-dimensional dynamic programming (DP) model to present a network RM problem for air cargo. In order to overcome the computational challenge, this study develops two linear programming (LP) based models to provide the decision support operationally suitable for airlines. In addition, this study further introduces a dynamic adjustment factor to alleviate the inaccuracy problem of the static LP models in estimating resource opportunity cost. Finally, a numerical experiment is performed to validate the applicability of the developed model and solution algorithm to the real-world problems. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A linear programming-based method for the network revenue management problem of air cargo
(2015-01-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Lu, Heng
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
One critical operational issue of air cargo operation faced by airlines is the control over the sales of their limited cargo space. Since American Airlines' successful implementation in the post-deregulation era, revenue management (RM) has become a common practice for the airline industry. However, unlike the air passenger operation supported by well-developed RM systems with advanced decision models, the decision process in selling air cargo space to freight forwarders is usually based on experience, without much support from optimization techniques. This study first formulates a multi-dimensional dynamic programming (DP) model to present a network RM problem for air cargo. In order to overcome the computational challenge, this study develops two linear programming (LP) based models to provide the decision support operationally suitable for airlines. In addition, this study further introduces a dynamic adjustment factor to alleviate the inaccuracy problem of the static LP models in estimating resource opportunity cost. Finally, a numerical experiment is performed to validate the applicability of the developed model and solution algorithm to the real-world problems. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
A mathematical programming model for aircraft leasing decisions
(2018-06-01)
Chen, Wei-Ting
;
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Ardiansyah, Muhammad Nashir
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
For the airline fleet planning problem, this paper formulates a mathematical programming model specifically also taking into account of the increasingly popular capital lease, which has some mixed features of the two traditional aircraft acquirement methods: operating lease and purchase. Given the aircraft requirements, budget, and debt-ratio limit, the objective is to minimize the total cost within the planning horizon. Numerical experiments were conducted to compare the optimal solutions for the airlines with different business models, scales, and experiences. This paper further simulates a scenario under the new standards which will be applied in 2019. The results of sensitivity analysis show that when the debt-ratio constraint is relaxed, capital leases would be helpful for reducing the cost of airlines.
A routing and consolidation decision model for containerized air-land intermodal operations
(2020-03-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
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Lee, Yu-Ting
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Xu, Haoran
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運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
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Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
The study aims to provide the decision support for airfreight forwarders regarding the air-land intermodal operation, for which shipments are transported to gateway airports by air transportation and then delivered to final destinations by trucking service. A mixed integer programming model has been formulated to tackle the integrated routing and consolidation decision, given the various types of air containers. This study has designed an approximate solution algorithm based on Lagrangian Relaxation. In the numerical experiment, the solution algorithm can achieve an objective function value very close to optimality or the Lagrangian lower bound within an acceptable computation time.
A simulation analysis for the re-solving issue of the network revenue management problem
(2014-06-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Lin, Chia-Yi
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運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
The classic dynamic programming approach is not applicable to the airline network revenue management (RM) problem of a practical size due to the curse of dimensionality. Many heuristic methods, including the most popular bid-price control approach, generate the approximate control decisions based on various static formulations, which need to be re-solved to take into account the dynamic features of the problem. By a simulation experiment, this study examines the re-solving issue of the bid-price method and tests a new method, the parameterized function approach, in which no problem-resolving is required. Based on the results, the parameterized function approach is found to be a promising alternative. As for the bid-price control approach, a high re-solving frequency is needed for a good result. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A stochastic dairy transportation problem considering collection and delivery phases
(2019-09-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Wu, Kun-Feng
;
Ardiansyah, Muhammad Nashir
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
Based on the dairy cooperatives in Indonesia, this study formulates a stochastic programming model to handle the milk collection and delivery process with the maximum route duration limitation, the external cooling facility option, and travel time uncertainty. Besides, the local practice of sharing the fleet for both collection and delivery further complicates the decision. A set covering-based solution approach is used, due to its flexibility in handling complicated operational requirements and alignment with the decision environment. According to the numerical experiment, the proposed solution algorithm can provide quality solutions with a reasonable computational time for the cooperative operators.
A transportation programming model considering project interdependency and regional balance
(2013-11-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Kuo, Yi-Ming
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
Transportation Programming (TP) plays an important role in the development of the infrastructure of a country. Given the limited budget, it is a challenging decision to select the projects to be funded and implemented from the numerous options. The problem is complicated by the fact that some of the potential projects are interdependent. The benefit (and/or the cost) of the joint project combining multiple projects can be different from the sum of the benefits (and/or the costs) if the associated projects are implemented separately. Besides, some projects cannot be selected at the same time as they are incompatible or exclusive to each other by nature. The typical examples are the projects utilizing the same resource, such as a piece of land. In addition, much more attention nowadays is paid to the fairness of budget allocation and the balance of regional development as the society becomes more democratic and diversified. Thus, in order to address the equity issue and the political feasibility, a new integer programming (IP) model based on the set covering problem (SCP) has been proposed to ensure that the regional balance issue is addressed. This SCP-based model, with the constraints taking into account the budget limitation and the projects' mutual exclusivity, is transformed into a linear programming (LP) model by Lagrangian Relaxation (LR). The key theme of this study is then to design the solution algorithm that can efficiently adjust the LP multipliers and find the feasible solutions so as to achieve a high-quality approximate solution within an acceptable computation time. Finally, a numerical experiment that can reflect the practical situations is performed to validate the applicability of the developed model and solution algorithm. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A transportation programming model considering project interdependency and regional balance
(2013-01-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Kuo, Yi-Ming
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
Transportation Programming (TP) plays an important role in the development of the infrastructure of a country. Given the limited budget, it is a challenging decision to select the projects to be funded and implemented from the numerous options. The problem is complicated by the fact that some of the potential projects are interdependent. The benefit (and/or the cost) of the joint project combining multiple projects can be different from the sum of the benefits (and/or the costs) if the associated projects are implemented separately. Besides, some projects cannot be selected at the same time as they are incompatible or exclusive to each other by nature. The typical examples are the projects utilizing the same resource, such as a piece of land. In addition, much more attention nowadays is paid to the fairness of budget allocation and the balance of regional development as the society becomes more democratic and diversified. Thus, in order to address the equity issue and the political feasibility, a new integer programming (IP) model based on the set covering problem (SCP) has been proposed to ensure that the regional balance issue is addressed. This SCP-based model, with the constraints taking into account the budget limitation and the projects' mutual exclusivity, is transformed into a linear programming (LP) model by Lagrangian Relaxation (LR). The key theme of this study is then to design the solution algorithm that can efficiently adjust the LP multipliers and find the feasible solutions so as to achieve a high-quality approximate solution within an acceptable computation time. Finally, a numerical experiment that can reflect the practical situations is performed to validate the applicability of the developed model and solution algorithm. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Customer Loyalty under the Influence of Revenue Management: The Case of Taiwanese Hotel Customers
(2015-12-02)
Lin, Yi Hsin
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Huang, Kuancheng
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
Revenue management (RM), a common practice for the hotel industry, has been found to be very effective in generating extra revenue. However, prior studies have shown that the implementation of RM may potentially be in conflict with customer loyalty, the basis for long-term profitability. With a view to alleviating the impact of RM on customer loyalty, this study investigates the relationship between customer loyalty and RM knowledge level, and examines the moderating effect of the fairness perception for pricing based on a survey and the related statistical analyses. The findings suggest that hotel operators should facilitate the RM knowledge and the fairness perception of their customers so as to result in a potential win-win situation, in which profit-seeking hotels increase their revenue through better resource utilization, and heterogeneous customers benefit from more diversified services.
Locating Manufacturer Distribution Centers by a Fixed-Charge Model: A Case Study of Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor Inc.
(2009-06-01)
Huang, Kuancheng
;
Chen, Ying-Hsuann
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor Inc. (KKL), once a nonprofit government monopoly, was corporatized in 1998. Cost reduction and profit maximization became the new corporation's main goal. Located on an island off the main island of Taiwan, KKL sells over 90 percent of its produced liquor domestically. In order to restructure its distribution system, KKL is planning to establish the distribution centers (DCs) on the main island of Taiwan. This study aimed to provide the decision support from a quantitative aspect for KKL's strategic plan. The classic fixed-charge model was modified to take into consideration the inbound and outbound transportation costs of the DCs as well as the variable and fixed components of the DC facility costs. This study collected and estimated the relevant parameters in the model, and obtained the optimized solution. The results indicated that three DCs need to be established with a total system cost of NTD 110,786,400 per year.
The strategic berth template problem
(2014-12-01)
Imai, Akio
;
Yamakawa, Yukiko
;
Huang, Kuancheng
;
運輸與物流管理系註：原交通所+運管所
;
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management
A marine container terminal operator may have a situation with excessive calling requests to be served especially when some new service contracts are under consideration. For this situation, we propose a strategic berth template problem (BTPS) that selects the ships among the requesting ones to be served and arrange their berth-windows within a limited planning horizon. The BTPS employs the subgradient optimization procedure, which is an improved version of the procedure that the authors developed for the operational berth allocation problem. A wide variety of numerical experiments indicate the improved subgradient procedure works well for the BTPS. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.