Sharif Digital Repository

Iran has the third largest reservoirs of oil and the second largest reservoirs of gas and has the greatest hydrocarbon reservoirs worldwide. Considering the fact that production of oil is highly dependent on gas injection, Iran is facing a great challenge in determining proper strategy for consuming natural gas. Due to the lack of proper strategy form the point of view of economical as well as scientific evaluation in political and social aspects, it has resulted in weakening Iran’s place in international markets and also reduction of oil wells’ productions.In this study, after a review of relevant literature, characteristics of oil and gas projects effective on modeling them were... 

In this thesis, we focus on some internal organization issues of the supply chain; in particular, we analyze some network design problems which are typical of producer companies. The aim is to optimize the flow of goods through the literature distribution network, from the plants where the goods are produced (supply points) to the demand points, which are essentially distributors such as wholesalers or retailers. The system addresses a class of distribution network design problems, which is characterized by multiple product families, a central manufacturing plant site, multiple central warehouses and distribution center, and retail outlets (customer zones) which demand multiple units of... 

The purpose of this thesis is to develop an e-Business B2B system for a company. We review e-Business concepts, its requirements as well as the obstacles to implement it. Then, the various kinds of e-Business, their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. We study the outcome of e-Business system implemented in two Iranian companies. Then, we design an information system for one company. Indeed, this system presents the process of purchasing and sale representing the transactions between the company and its sale representatives. This information system is designed within Microsoft Access environment. This system can make this company capable of entering international markets by... 

The problem of developing optimal pricing and inventory allocation strategies has been extensively studied over the past two decades. However, most of the literature in this area assumes that customers are myopic price-takers, and do not respond to firm pricing strategically. In this study, we present review on a class of problems that consider a firm selling a finite number of items over a finite time horizon facing stochastic demand and a group of customers who act strategically by timing their purchases. We first review the optimal purchasing policy for the customers, and pricing policy for the firm that is the best response policy to the customer’s strategic behavior. Then we present a... 

In electrical energy market, an economic game is running in which, power generating companies compete with each other in order to determine their suitable strategies and gain the highest possible profit. The literature shows the researchers actually use different algorithms to determine their suitable strategies but not Nash equilibrium method. These algorithms can not guarantee that the strategic equilibrium points can be found. In this research, the classic Nash method is used to determine GENCOs appropriate strategies and is simulated on some well known models (Cournot, Supply function equilibrium (SFE) and Bertrand), combined energy and reserve markets will be studied. The results of... 

In this investigation, two pricing models are extended with continuous and periodic price settings through dynamic programming approach. In this problem, we intend to sell a perishable product in a finite horizon with no salvage value through an advance-sale system. The objective function in these models is maximizing expected value of firms’ revenue by setting optimal prices in pricing periods. Demand is assumed to be stochastic time and price-dependent and also customers might cancel their reservations by paying a penalty before delivery. Structural properties of the optimal policy are investigated for both models and the concavity and inventory monotonicity properties are proved for both.... 

In this study, four pricing models in a supply chain are developed. The first model includes a retailer. The second model also includes a retailer. However in this model we apply the learning technique to update the stochastic demand. In the third model, we consider a supply chain consisting of a retailer and a manufacturer. Finally, in the fourth model we consider a supply chain consisting of a retailer and a manufacturer and like the second model; we apply the learning technique to update the stochastic demand. In all models we assume that a single product is sold in a monopoly market. In this study we seek to simultaneously determine decisions about production, pricing and ordering to... 

In this study, we introduce a systematic approach for valuation of Technology development projects by applying a discrete model of real options valuation. This framework is then applied to a real technology development project. The estimate of volatility is the most important argument that it is difficult to calculate. Data from the project’s feasibility study is gathered and classified in an appropriate format to be ready for simulation. Then uncertainty parameters are identified. The data is separated and their impacts on annual cash flows are considered. Volatility of the whole project is estimated to be relatively high. This is an advantage for the proposed method. In this project,... 

In this project railway industry is introduced as an optimal alternative for transportation in this country. To select the best choice, four railway technologies that have commercial capacity are presented and the most appropriate one is selected with respect to several criteria, including fuel consumption. The purpose of this thesis is to present the best technology in order to improve Iranian railway transportation by considering the shortage of fossil resources as well as pollution.In this project,the copmparison of alternatives and assessment criteria for best technology selection is done by Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the questionaries are filled out by industry and... 

Location-allocation problem is known as one of the classical problems in industrial engineering. The goals of these problems are finding optimal location of facilities and assigning these facilities to service demands from a given set of point. Location-allocation decisions are widespread through all organization in the world concerning private and public businesses. Therefore, in this study, a practical mathematical model is formulated and solved.In this paper we present a new approach for a budgeted constraint capacitated location-allocation problem integrated with cellular layout approach containing cell formation and group scheduling. Main decisions are composed of formation of... 

In this paper, a new method for handling power plants preventive maintenance scheduling problem is proposed in which a decentralized framework is applied in order to help the electricity markets to prevent data sharing. The new approach is the extension of alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) along with several heuristics and refinements to omit the effect of non-convexity of the problem. Since, the new methodmerely needs minimal information exchange, it is completely practical. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, a case study based on generating system of Iran is presented. It is shown that the proposed model obtains acceptable results  

This dissertation develops a new approach in network revenue management problems, with concentration on hotel industry. Several methods and heuristics are suggested in the literature to obtain an appropriate solution for network problems, however their focus is mostly on the transportation carriers. These heuristics do not seem to have satisfying effectiveness for hotel industry cases, because of significant difference between these two industries including the network structures, demand distributions and competition markets. On the other hand, with the tremendous growth of the internet and online sale channels, customers’ purchase behavior is modifying drastically. However this behavioral... 

In this study, we examine all decisions related to operating room planning and scheduling problem by considering uncertainty in surgery durations. To achieve this purpose, first, a mixed integer linear program is developed to determine the master surgical schedule. Then, two different approaches are investigated to model the weekly planning and scheduling of elective patients problem considering uncertain surgery durations. In the first approach, a unified model is proposed and an effective and efficient method, based on the recently introduced anarchic society optimization algorithm, is developed to solve the problem. In the second approach, first an advance scheduling problem is formulated... 

This study investigates the bundle pricing strategy in which a seller offers both individual products and a bundle comprising one unit of each individual product. Moreover in order to motivate costumers, usually a discount is offered for the bundle option. This strategy is an important price discrimination tool for companies that serve customers with heterogeneous preferences and implementing it can maximize seller’s expected profits. In this study two mathematical programming models for the mixed bundle pricing problem are developed. The first model investigates the inventory and ordering decisions in this problem. In order to solve this model, a solution approach based on the benders... 

Markowitz’s asset allocation model with mean-variance approach has well-known issues, amongst them are too much sensitivity to input parameters (especially asset returns) and portfolios that are not diversified well. In order to cope with these issues, risk parity approach has been suggested, which by omitting return parameter from the model, tries to balance portfolio’s risk among different assets. However, risk parity has not been appreciated by researchers due to ambiguity in the investor’s utility function, lack of a solid mathematical framework and its heuristic nature. This study, first tries to develop the mathematical theory of risk parity at the asset level and at the risk factors... 

In this study vendor-managed inventory policy in supply chains is investigated and a formulation is developed to optimize replenishments from vendor to retailer and also price for negotiator customers. As a result, we consider a two echelon supply chain containing a vendor and a retailer managed according to VMI policy. The goal is to find the optimal replenishment from vendor to retailer at the beginning of the month and by using dynamic programming approach to maximize the supply chain profit. Demand is nondeterministic and it is supposed Poisson distribution with unknown parameter. We will consider Gamma distribution for this parameter which its parameters are learning in dynamic... 

This thesis focuses on the network capacity control problem while, risk-averse criteria is considered for decision making. Network revenue management models have wide applications in various industries such as airlines, hotels, railways, rental halls due to handling multiple resources. All models in the related literature are developed based on risk-neutral criteria. However, in this thesis we consider risk-averse policies for many reasons such as risk reduction, covering fixed costs rather than maximizing revenue, and earning some specific revenue within a specific time period. We apply dynamic programming by adopting two types of utility functions: 1) additive and time-separable utility... 

In this study, the problem of pricing and inventory control for non-instantaneous deteriorating items with two separate warehouses is considered. One warehouse is owned and the other one is rented. The rented one has a higher holding cost due to better preserving facilities. In the literature, a common assumption is that the deterioration of items starts at the instant of their arrival, while in fact the majority of goods have a short time span for maintaining quality or original condition, during which no deterioration occurs. For non-instantaneous deteriorating items, the common assumptions may lead to the overvaluation of the total annual relevant inventory cost. In the present study a... 

In this research, we consider an assemble-to-order production system which accepts order for multi-products. Demand is stochastic and price-dependent. We also consider a sale index that links demand of each period to the previous periods demand. The variety of products which use common parts makes this revenue management system complicated. Furthermore, since the price of each product can have an effect on other products demand, it causes price dependency among them. We model the problem within the framework of dynamic programming approach to maximize discounted profit of the firm during a finite and multi-period horizon. We develop an integrated system of pricing and production decisions... 

The Operating Room (OR) is one of the most expensive resources of any hospital. Surgical costs typically account for approximately 40% of the total hospital resource costs, while surgeries typically generate around 67% of hospital revenues. Therefore, it is important to control the surgery costs while maintaining a high quality of care. In this study, all the decisions related to the Operating Theatre are being hierarchically considered in strategic, tactical and operational levels. The Operating Theatre consists of operation rooms, a recovery unit, an intensive care unit (ICU), a critical care unit (CCU), and ward units. In this model there exist many uncertainties, which the robust...