[Opt-net] 2nd CfP: IJPR Special Issue - Lot Sizing and Scheduling

[Christian Almeder]

International Journal of Production Research

Special Issue - Call for Papers

Lot Sizing and Scheduling: New models and solution approaches to address
industrial extensions

An agile and rapid response to changing markets or demand requires
planning and scheduling models that are able to represent and exploit the
flexibility and characteristics of many production processes. Effective
planning lies at the very heart of the operational performance of
manufacturing organizations. Motivated by industrial practice, the
research community has been trying to model and solve more realistic
production planning problems.

Among the most important and challenging problems are the sizing and
scheduling of production lots. In many industrial applications, especially
from the process industries, the close relationship between lot sizing and
scheduling makes it imperative that both decisions are made simultaneously
in order to efficiently use capacity. Traditional models have been
increasingly refined to incorporate more detail and integrate lot sizing
with scheduling.

Increasing realism turns the mathematical models larger and more complex.
This added complexity, and the need to increase the size of instances
solvable to near-optimality, requires the integration of existing methods
with novel and efficient optimization algorithms, along with the
development of tighter models and stronger valid inequalities based on the
model polyhedral structures. Moreover, there is a continuing need to trade
off the complexity of reality on planning models with mathematical and
computational tractability.

This special issue on Lot Sizing and Scheduling aims to publish research
that addresses more realistic and practical variants of models, and the
use of novel solution techniques. (Pure scheduling papers do not fit the
scope of this call.)

In particular we seek original contributions on the following topics among
others:
i) Successful applications of lot sizing and scheduling models in real world
cases.
ii) Extensions of well known lot sizing and scheduling models, including
(but not limited to): non-triangular setups, period-overlapping setups,
multiple resource types, blocking, multi-level and multi-machine systems.
iii) Promising novel solution techniques, exact methods, and hybrid
approaches.
iv) Comparison of different solution techniques.
v) The effect of dealing with real life instances to carry out computational
experiments, instead of relying on random instance generators.
vi) Replanning and rescheduling, especially in the context of stochastic
production environments

Please submit your paper by email to all three the Guest Editors as a PDF
or MS Word file, following the instructions for authors on the IJPR
website:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=0020-7543&linktype=44
Please do not use IJPR's online submission system.

Guest Editors of Special Issue
Alistair Clark, Bristol Institute of Technology, University of the West of
England, United Kingdom, Alistair.Clark at uwe.ac.uk
Bernardo Almada-Lobo, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal,
Almada.Lobo at fe.up.pt
Christian Almeder, Faculty of Business, Economics, and Statistics,
University of Vienna, Austria, Christian.Almeder at univie.ac.at
 
Important Dates
1.	Deadline for manuscripts submissions: 31 July 2009
2.	Target for the completion of the first round of reviews: 31 October
2009
3.	Deadline for the submissions of revised manuscripts: 31 January 2010
4.	Target for the completion of the second (last) round of reviews: 1
April 2010
5.	Target for sending the accepted manuscripts to the publisher: 1 May
2010.