High dependence on imported oil has increased U.S. strategic vulnerability and prompted more research in the area of renewable energy production. Ethanol production from renewable woody biomass, which could be a substitute for gasoline, has seen increased interest. This study analysed energy use and greenhouse gas emission impacts on the forest biomass supply chain activities within the State o...

Transportation and supply chain activities represent essential components in many endeavors covering both public and private domains. However, the underlying transport networks are complex and potentially fragile due to weather, natural disasters or other risk factors. Thus, assessing transportation related risk represents a key decision support capability along with the ability to evaluate con...

Advanced solar thermal electric options are dropping in price and some companies are beginning to introduce thermal storage. This paper suggests not only that Solar Thermal Electricity (STE) has sufficient diurnal and seasonal natural correlation with electricity load to supply the great majority of the US national grid (and by logical extension, those of China and India) on an annual basis wit...

We consider a multi-product serial two echelon inventory system with stochastic demand. Inventories at the downstream location are replenished periodically using an automatic ordering system. Under vendor managed inventory strategies the upstream stage is allowed to adapt these orders in order to benefit from economies of scale. We propose three different VMI strategies, aiming to reduce the or...

For manufacturing industries, the integration of business processes from customer-order management to delivery (Supply Chain Management) has widely been received much attention from the viewpoints of agile and lean manufacturing. Supply chain planning concerns broad activities ranging network-wide inventory management, forecasting, transportation, distribution planning, production planning and ...

Distribution centers (DCs) play important poles in supply chain managements. How to decide an effective and reasonable distribution center location is a first goal for supply chain design, which directly influences the efficiency of the network of facilities and activities that procure, produce, and distribute goods to customers. In the previous literatures, authors seldom consider unexpected e...

one of the main challenges facing urban planning in the late 20th century is the growth rate of traffic that influences access to sustainable urban development. one of the solutions proposed for traffic—as well as the economic, social, and environmental problems originating from it—in large cities has been the applying of traffic restrictions during certain times and in specific places in order...

The H5N1 influenza threat is resulting in global preparations for the next influenza pandemic. Pandemic influenza planners are prioritizing scarce vaccine, antivirals, and public health support for different segments of society. The freight, bulk goods, and energy transportation network comprise the maritime, rail, air, and trucking industries. It relies on small numbers of specialized workers ...

This paper deals with the so-called transportation problem of linear stochastic fractional programming, and emphasizes the wide applicability of LSFP. The transportation problem, received this name because many of its applications involve in determining how to optimally transport goods. However, some of its applications (e.g., production scheduling) actually have nothing to do with transportati...

In 2013, the United States used more than 25% of its energy supply for the purpose of moving people and goods from one place to another, i.e., in the transportation sector. 1 Even modest improvements that reduce transportation energy consumption can reduce energy imports and greenhouse gas emissions, two of ARPA-E’s primary goals. To date, technologies directed at transportation have focused pr...