Abstract

The production and rail transportation coordinating problem aims to determine a pre-operational timetable for a set of orders. The orders need to be manufactured on a dedicated production line and be delivered to their destination by the pre-planned trains considering traveling routes and time. The connecting trains are an important and even unique chance for orders to reach their final destinations, and earliness and tardiness penalties in the connection and delivery process are closely related to the symmetry and harmony between production procedure decision and train-allocated choice. A scenario analysis method is adopted to reveal the relationships between production collection connecting time (PCCT) and production collection waiting time (PCWT) in the production process. In the delivery process, the relationships between production delivery connecting time (PDCT) and production delivery waiting time (PDWT) are mainly considered. An integrated scheduling coordination model is established to maximize the production connecting time (PCT) and production delivery time (PDT). The GA genetic algorithm is employed to solve this problem. The numerical results show that the coordinated schedule in our method can significantly reduce the number of missed connections when compared with considering delivery timeliness only through a delivery time window. Additionally, it is revealed that the quantitative performances of the delivery timeliness improved by the connecting quality (PCT) are much better than those from the view of the delivery time window (PDT).

Highlights

  • Many studies have involved made-to-order or time-sensitive products (Shen et al [1], Shu et al [2], and Federgruen et al [3]), and finished orders are often delivered to customers immediately or shortly after production

  • The numerical results show that the coordinated schedule in our method can significantly reduce the number of missed connections when compared with considering delivery timeliness only through a delivery time window

  • There are many studies on the study of production–distribution issues, but few works focus on the coordinating timetable of rail transportation with the production sequence

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Summary

Introduction

Many studies have involved made-to-order or time-sensitive products (Shen et al [1], Shu et al [2], and Federgruen et al [3]), and finished orders are often delivered to customers immediately or shortly after production. In China, the newest government report noticed that, by 2020, large industrial mining enterprises and newly built logistics parks with an annual volume of over 1.5 million tons will have access to over 80% of dedicated railway lines [5] This shows that there is a significant benefit in practice in using optimally integrated production–distribution applications (Chen and Variraktarakis [6] and Pundoor and Chen [7]). One is to coordinate the activities in time and space to determine the production procedure decision and train-allocated choice with the consideration of a line plan and timetable. A train can ship several orders to multiple destinations along the same passage of the railway This problem is further complicated by the rail timetable coordination between production and rail transportation (Díaz-Madroñero et al [12] and Sremac et al [13]).

Literature Review
Basic Assumptions
Model Formulation
Solution Algorithm and Numerical Experiment
Illustration
Numerical
The tw
Performance of GA and Convergence Test
Objective
Comparisons of Different Objectives
Analysis of Penalty Parameters and GA Parameters
Findings
Conclusions
Full Text
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