Profit Objectives Research Articles

Optimizing customized bus services for multi‐trip urban passengers: A bi‐objective approach

AbstractCustomized bus services typically focus on single‐trip requests, which often struggle to accommodate the growing needs for varied multiple trips in urban daily travel. This paper addresses the customized bus routing problem for passengers with multiple trips. A bi‐objective mathematical model is established for maximizing the operational profit and minimizing the travel costs by considering the characteristics of the multi‐trip requests and time‐dependent travel time. Besides, a novel profit objective function is proposed considering the service's completion status and the starting price. Since the proposed mixed integer linear programming model is an NP‐hard problem, a non‐dominated sorting genetic algorithm II‐based method is proposed to handle different sizes of instances. Finally, the instances with multi‐trip requests are carried out to test the accuracy of the model and the effectiveness of our method compared with Gurobi and the local search‐based multi‐objective algorithm approach.

An integrated method to identify and improve logistical gaps

ABSTRACT This paper reviews the critical elements of the SCOR model and its applications in solving logistical problems. It also discusses the theoretical approach to BSC concepts and the analysis of the tactical scenario and a company’s restrictions. The study is inductive, validating theoretical aspects that can be generalised through empirical testing. The proposed methodology integrates the BSC and SCOR models, aligning operational and strategic indicators, to performance measurement and achieving profitability objectives. The model integrated suppliers, improving inventory management and productivity, and its structure is defined from the company’s main decisions related to supply chain processes. The SCOR and Balanced Scorecard models were tested in a logistic process in a hardware store, with no known background in the literature on its application in this industry. These two models were integrated into a unified tool, with an indicator dashboard as an output, to support decision-making at both strategic and operational (logistics) levels.

Decarbonizing a supply chain with an unreliable supplier: Implications for profitability and sustainability

The increasing emphasis on corporate social responsibility has led to a growing trend among firms to initiate decarbonization campaigns, aligning their sustainability efforts with profitability objectives. This paper explores the challenge of decarbonizing a supply chain wherein a buyer cooperates with an unreliable supplier that possesses private absorptive capacity and varying degrees of bargaining power. We develop models based on whether the absorptive capacity remains private information and whether the buyer has more bargaining power in determining the profit-maximizing price. Our findings indicate that the buyer may opt to avoid entering into contracts with the supplier for decarbonization if the absorptive capacity ratio falls below certain values. When contracting occurs, decarbonization has the potential to yield a mutually beneficial outcome for firms, customers, and the environment. Nevertheless, the presence of private information has negative implications for customers and the environment because it results in reduced consumer surplus and increased carbon footprint. As the buyer’s bargaining power strengthens, the likelihood of supply chain decarbonization increases, potentially leading to more consumer surplus and less carbon footprint. Finally, we discuss the effects of key model factors from a triple bottom line perspective (i.e., profit, people, and the planet).

The effect of manager's profile on the social innovation in Cameroonian industrial companies

The aim of this research is to highlight the role of manager's profile in the adoption of social innovation in industrial companies. It has used a quantitative methodology, with a questionnaire administered to 176 managers of Cameroonian industrial companies. The results of the hypotheses tests were derived from the multifactorial ANOVA and multiple linear regression analyses. The results show that among the sociodemographic profile variables, only the level of education and experience of the managers have a significant effect on social innovation, unlike gender and age which have no effect. In addition, the manager's personal values contribute to the adoption of social innovation through his ethical values and community ownership. The study therefore offers relevant implications for managers and owners of industrial companies who aspire to consider social innovation in their offerings to meet profitability objectives and create positive social impact.

Forecast Horizon of Dynamic Lot Sizing Problem with Perishable Inventory and Multiple Chain Stores: Shipping and Stockout Cost

Perishable products are very common, but managing inventory of perishable products can be very challenging for firms, especially in distribution systems, including multiple chain stores. In this environment, we consider a dynamic lot-sizing problem faced by a distribution center that dis-patches a single perishable product to multiple chain stores. Demand cannot be backlogged, but it does not have to be satisfied; unsatisfied demand means stockout (lost sale). The first step is to transform the total profit function into a special total cost function. Our next step is to explore the properties of the optimal solution and use them to formulate a dynamic programming algorithm to solve the problem. Furthermore, we establish forecast and decision horizon results, which help the operation manager to decide the precise forecast horizon in a rolling decision-making process. Based on the model setting and the methods of dynamic programming, we obtained two interesting findings: (1) the maximized profit objective function is equivalent to the minimized cost objective function, and (2) the famous zero inventory property conditionally holds in the inventory management of perishable products. On an extensive test bed, useful insights were obtained on the impact of the lifetime of the product and cost parameters on the total cost and length of the forecast horizon. Thus, the contributions of this study are as follows: (1) we explore two structure policies in an optimal solution to devise efficient algorithms to reduce computational complexity; (2) we provide a sufficient condition for forecasting and decision horizons; and (3) we determine that, for a given fixed cost, the median forecast horizon first increases with the lifetime of the product and stockout cost and then remains invariable when it reaches a certain level.

The Impact of Sustainability Performance on Company Profitability in the COVID-19 Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Context

Abstract The current context, dominated by climate change, resource constraints, health and financial crises, the need for continuity and increased profitability of companies, increasing stakeholder interest in environmental risks and non-financial information, requires addressing business from the perspective of environmental, social and governance standards. Companies will therefore integrate their sustainability performance objectives, complementary to their profitability objectives. Thus, the objective of this research is to measure the impact that sustainability performance has on company profitability. The research approach is two-dimensional. The first dimension considers the literature review on conceptual approaches specific to environmental, social, governance standards. The results highlighted the upward trend and the diversity of facets related to environmental, social, governance standards. The second dimension is a quantitative research that aims to measure the impact that sustainability performance (ESG score) has on the profitability of listed companies in Europe. The research data was collected for the period 2020-2022 from the Refinitiv database (LSEG Data & Analytics). The results revealed an increase in interest in sustainability performance of listed companies in Europe, both from the perspective of the reporting companies and in terms of the global average ESG score, during the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic. From the perspective of the regional affiliation of the reporting companies, Southern Europe is the best performing pole in terms of average ESG score, followed by Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Europe and the last position is occupied by Northern Europe. The results also showed that the ESG score has a positive but insignificant influence on the profitability of the sampled companies. This research complements the literature, given the topicality and importance of ESG issues, but is also relevant for stakeholders interested in the sustainability of companies' business.

Optimized Decision-Making for Multi-Market Green Power Transactions of Electricity Retailers under Demand-Side Response: The Chinese Market Case Study

With the energy structure transition and the development of the green power market, the role of electricity retailers in multi-market green power trading has become more and more important. Particularly in China, where aggressive green energy policies and rapid market transformations provide a distinct context for such studies, the challenges are pronounced. Under demand-side response, electricity retailers face the uncertainty of users’ electricity consumption and incentives, which complicates decision-making processes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the optimization decision-making problem of multi-market green power trading for electricity retailers under demand-side response, with a special focus on the Chinese market due to its leadership in implementing substantial green energy initiatives and its potential to set precedents for global practices. We first construct a two-party benefit optimization model, which comprehensively considers the profit objectives for electricity retailers and utility maximization for users. Then, the model is solved by the Lagrange multiplier method and distributed subgradient algorithm to obtain the optimal solution. Finally, the effectiveness of the incentive optimization strategy under the multi-market to promote green power consumption and improve the profit of electricity retailers is verified by arithmetic simulation. The results of this study show that the incentive optimization strategy under multi-market, particularly within the Chinese context, is expected to provide a reference for electricity retailers to develop more flexible and effective trading strategies in the green power market and to contribute to the process of promoting green power consumption globally.

Nodal price-based demand response management via orderly time-of-use strategy for an unbalanced isolated microgrid considering voltage stability constraints

This paper scrutinizes the compatibility of voltage stability criteria with price-based demand response management (DRM) for a large-scale isolated microgrid considering severe dependency of constant-impedance loads (CILs) on nodal voltage magnitude. Meanwhile, a hybrid nodal pricing (HNP) scheme is developed to determine clearing prices for resources and time-of-use (TOU) tariffs for price-responsive loads. The proposed framework is composed of three ingredients including two optimization molds with the objective of actual net profit and recast operation expense sequentially solved in an iterative process together with one pay-off module. The energy schedules, unbalanced voltages and nodal prices are determined considering intermittency of renewable resources, unbalances, circuit limitations, and reactive power requirements. Two bus and line voltage stability indices as well as voltage profile management criterion are used to prevent voltage instability. Thus, load profile is corrected such that voltage stability can be upheld as well. The proposed method is implemented via a modified CIGRE benchmark. The simulation results demonstrate that load factor improves at least 4.30% under desirable stability margins. Moreover, total energy loss and line voltage unbalance rate (LVUR) decrease at least 1.02% and 10.03% respectively.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Mining Companies: Regulation and Business Role in Indonesia

This study aims to examine the role of mining business actors concerning community development in Indonesia from a regulatory perspective related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. This research used qualitative methodologies using interviews and literature reviews were used. Mining companies share the common objective of profitability with other business sectors. However, CSR program within companies mandates that mining companies play a developmental role as community agents in the vicinity of their operations. In Indonesia, the national ideology of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, serves as the highest legal document, which firmly establishes that mining resources are under the control of the state. These resources are used to achieve social justice for all Indonesians through equitable development carried out by companies. This study explores CSR programs in the Indonesian mining sector by conducting a special role regulated by the ideology and constitution of the nation.
 Keywords: CSR, regulation, mining companies

Wind Farm Layout Optimization Subject to Cable Cost, Hub Height, and a Feasible 3D Gaussian Wake Model Implementation

We address the Wind Farm Layout Optimization (WFLO) problem and tackle the optimal placement of several turbines within a specific (wind farm) area by incorporating additional aspects of an economically driven target function. With this, we contribute three refinements for WFLO research: First, while many research contributions optimize the turbines’ locations subject to maximum energy production or energy efficiency, we instead pursue a strategy of maximizing a profit objective. This enables us to incorporate inner-farm wiring costs (underground cable installation). For this, we explore the impact of using MSTs (Minimum Spanning Trees) and adding junction (so-called “Steiner”) points to the terrain plane. Second, while most research focuses on finding optimal x and y coordinates (i.e., address two-dimensional turbine placement), we also optimize the turbines’ hub heights z. Third, we also provide a software implementation of the Gaussian wake model. The latter finds entrance to the open-source WFLO research framework that comes as package <strong>wflo</strong> for statistical software R. We find that taking wiring cost into account may lead to very different turbine placements, however, increasing overall profit significantly. Allowing the optimizer to vary the hub heights may have an ambiguous impact on the wind farm profit.

Quality Competition Among Internet Service Providers

Internet service providers (ISPs) have a variety of quality attributes that determine their attractiveness for data transmission, ranging from quality-of-service metrics such as jitter to security properties such as the presence of DDoS defense systems. ISPs should optimize these attributes in line with their profit objective, i.e., maximize revenue from attracted traffic while minimizing attribute-related cost, all in the context of alternative offers by competing ISPs. However, this attribute optimization is difficult not least because many aspects of ISP competition are barely understood on a systematic level, e.g., the multi-dimensional and cost-driving nature of path quality, and the distributed decision making of ISPs on the same path. In this paper, we improve this understanding by analyzing how ISP competition affects path quality and ISP profits. To that end, we develop a game-theoretic model in which ISPs (i) affect path quality via multiple attributes that entail costs, (ii) are on paths together with other selfish ISPs, and (iii) are in competition with alternative paths when attracting traffic. The model enables an extensive theoretical analysis, surprisingly showing that competition can have both positive and negative effects on path quality and ISP profits, depending on the network topology and the cost structure of ISPs. However, a large-scale simulation, which draws on real-world data to instantiate the model, shows that the positive effects will likely prevail in practice: If the number of selectable paths towards any destination increases from 1 to 5, the prevalence of quality attributes increases by at least 50%, while 75% of ISPs improve their profit.

EFFECTS OF NON-PERFORMING LOANS ON RETURN ON ASSETS OF SELECTED COMMERCIAL BANKS IN NIGERIA

The essence of creating Commercial banks is to act as intermediary between the surplus (supply side) and deficit (demand side) units of funds. This is, in addition to other crucial objectives of profitability, growth in assets, and growth in customer base. To achieve these objectives, commercial banks grant loans to individuals, business organizations and governments among other profit yielding ventures. Loan defaults could be rampant resulting from low quality of assets, high non-performing risk assets (credit risk) that may result in huge loan losses, and reduction in bank profitability leading to adverse effect on return on assets of commercial banks. This study investigates the effect of non-performing loans (using loan loss provision as proxy) on return on assets of selected commercial banks in Nigeria. Annual time series secondary data from 2010 to 2021 were sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin and the Annual Financial Reports of affected bank, and panel least square method of analysis was used as our estimation technique. The results revealed that while loan loss provision has negative impact on return on assets of the selected commercial banks, interest rate has a positive impact on return on assets of the selected commercial banks within the period of study. The study recommends, amongst others that effective credit policy, reflected in flexible tenure; restructuring of credit terms; and conversion should be adopted in the selected commercial banks to minimize the negative impacts of loan defaults. This is because decline in loan default will lead to reduction in non-performing loans, and subsequently boost return on assets of affected banks in Nigeria.
 Keywords: Non-Performing Loan, Return on Asset, Interest Rates, Bank Performance, Bank Profitability, and Loan Loss Provisions.

Nexus between Impact Investing and Green Finance in Driving Sustainable Development

Purpose: This study explores the intersection of impact investing and green finance, focusing on their contributions to sustainable development and how they reshape financial markets. Research Design and Methodology: Using a qualitative approach, a systematic literature review is conducted to analyze how institutional investors incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into their strategies. Findings and Discussion: The research highlights a shift towards sustainability among institutional investors, moving beyond traditional financial-only returns. Key regulations like the EU’s SFDR and the TCFD recommendations support transparency, driving the adoption of sustainable practices. A positive link between robust ESG performance and financial returns illustrates the compatibility of environmental responsibility with profit objectives. Implications: The findings emphasize the necessity of integrating sustainability into investment decisions to foster a resilient and equitable economic future. It suggests that continued policy support is essential to encourage private investment in sustainable projects, advocating for systemic changes across financial markets to embrace sustainable and inclusive growth.

Research on Active Pricing and Replenishment Decision Making of Vegetable Commodities Based on Particle Swarm Algorithm

With economic development, people's eating habits are becoming more green and healthy, which provides a wide market for the sale of vegetable products. Due to the short shelf life and easily damaged characteristics of vegetable products, most of them cannot be sold the next day. As a result, supermarkets need to replenish their stock on a daily basis based on historical sales data. To help supermarkets formulate pricing and replenishment strategies to maximise sales, this paper takes two approaches based on domestic and international studies. First, this paper draws a scatter plot of total sales and markup rate and fits the functional relationship and concludes that the correlation between the two is not strong; it adopts a time series forecasting model to determine the cost price of each vegetable category for the next seven days, and solves the total daily replenishment and pricing for the next seven days using particle swarm algorithm through the establishment of a profit objective function. Second, considering the limited selling space of supermarkets and satisfying the market demand as much as possible, this paper introduces the constraint that the sellable single product categories are within 20, and solves for the replenishment and pricing of single products on 1 July 2023 in supermarkets. This paper provides workable ideas for pricing and replenishment decisions for vegetable products in supermarkets.

Business Digital Transformation in The Perspective of Business Competition Law

Purpose: This study aimed to enhance public knowledge of the seamless digitalization of business toward more effective outcomes based on the perspective of business competition law. Methods: The approach used was a normative and descriptive study approach. Results and Conclusion: The results showed that digital transformation enhanced business efficiency and provided companies with new perspective on profit management. The prevalence of digital competition became apparent through the widespread establishment of marketplaces and platform-based businesses, which aimed to provide consumers with attractive bargains in order to achieve their intended profit objectives. Research implications: Digital transformation, comprising various life aspects, is revolutionizing the online business economy, offering a modern alternative process for gaining profits. Originality/value: The advent of digital business transformation has engendered a range of effects, encompassing both favorable and unfavorable outcomes, so warranting meticulous deliberation.

Green Gateways: a concept for decisions in Circular-Oriented Economies

Industrial technologies have evolved towards circular-oriented manufacturing. New approaches in the management of production systems are needed to guarantee the success of such a circular approach. This paper identifies three research questions related to the complexities of decision-making within CEs and defines the concept of Green Gateways in the circular economy. A Green Gateway is a type of decision that supports to realizing the full potential of products and materials. Indeed, the potential value of products and materials must be assessed and leveraged and the concept of Green Gateway will be useful to identify common decisions and to define a common framework in the future. The integration of digital information and digital twins of products, processes, and circular value and supply chains emerges as a key factor in guiding decision-makers effectively, especially for Green Gateways where adequate information, tools and methods must be used to manage value retention options, product flows, production and pricing decisions jointly with the multiple objectives of profitability and sustainability. Additionally, this paper explores specific examples of circular economy use cases, drawing attention to their similarities and highlighting key insights.

Манипулятивные технологии смыслообразования: «забота о себе» и цифровые масс-медиа

Modern digital mass media actively perceive the concept of “care of the self” and work with its particular plan, the practices of constructing an “ideal” subject in its unified and standardized model. The article presents an analysis of the manipulative technology tools on the example of a serial, mass distribution apparatus for actual digital media. The interpretation of the dual mechanism is carried out by attracting the content of the works of the German philosopher T. Adorno and the Dutch linguist, theorist of discourse analysis T. Van Dijk. It is noted that the appeal to the universal personality in everyone, which can be considered as an object of practice, the legitimization of the content of the articles is affirmed by an act of dedication to the circle of the “chosen ones” through the use of the categories “we”, “all of us”; by the method of generalization, universalization to a group, construction of a community (“man as a species”). The language of the articles, through the trusting effect of familiar expressions, vaguely known authoritative statements, appeals to the integral personality inside of each reader. As a result, “care of the self” becomes in a transformed form a profitable object for broadcasting, as well as the property of everyone, a mass audience, through digital media. Modern practices of “care of the self” incorporate the desire for the state of “non-self” and offer the dissolution of the “I” in algorithms, mass average settings for ascent from the sphere of direct experience to the space of third-party observation of one’s own internal manifestations.

Inventory planning for self-serve pharmacy kiosks: A fill rate maximization approach

In recent years, self-serve kiosks have become increasingly popular due to their 24/7 availability and lower setup and operational costs compared to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. However, the inventory planning for pharmacy kiosks is a challenge due to its limited capacity to store thousands of drugs ordered in various quantities, each with low and sporadic drug demand. In this work, we model the pharmacy kiosk inventory planning problem as a capacitated multiproduct newsvendor problem under fill rate maximization objective. We present a data-driven robust optimization framework where product demand lies within an uncertainty set generated from product clustering. A column-and-constraint generation based solution approach is proposed to solve industry scale instances. The proposed robust framework is tested on actual pharmacy sales data and randomly generated instances with 2000 products. The robust solutions outperform scenario-based stochastic solutions with an increase in out-of-sample fill rate of 5.8%, on average, and of up to 17%. Comparative analysis with profit objective reveals that the fill rate objective results in 17% higher out-of-sample fill rate by compromising 20% in profits, on average.

Technical Note—Risk Sensitivity and Firm Power: Price Competition with Mean2-Variance Profit Objective Under Multinomial Logit Demand

Risk Sensitivity and Firm Power: Price Competition with Mean2-Variance Profit Objective Under Multinomial Logit Demand Firms with varying degrees of risk sensitivity perceive the same stochastic profit prospect differently. It is important to understand the equilibrium pricing behaviors under risk aversion and their implications on firms’ survival and market health. The authors identify a power index, which is the ratio of product attractiveness to risk sensitivity, and show that the set of profitable firms is power index ordered. Firms with a favorable power index value earn a positive profit in a price competition, and others are driven to zero profit. Interestingly, although high risk aversion handicaps a firm, this paper shows that moderate risk aversion may give a firm an advantage over an otherwise equivalent competitor that is less risk sensitive. The authors also establish that in an equilibrium with market entry and exit, the power index is generalized to the ratio of product attractiveness and an entry cost-adjusted risk sensitivity measure.

Evaluation of energy saving and emission reduction effect of distributed energy system

The conventional evaluation methods of energy conservation and emission reduction lack the discussion of quantification index of energy conservation and emission reduction potential, and the evaluation effect is poor. Therefore, an evaluation method for energy conservation and emission reduction of distributed energy systems is proposed, which considers system dynamics and demand response. According to the requirements of system dynamics analysis, the relational variables in the system dynamics model are determined. The input-output relationship of energy saving, and emission reduction effect evaluation is described by system dynamics equation, and the input-output relationship of energy saving, and emission reduction effect evaluation is determined. Based on the maximum profit objective function and the minimum cost objective function of the user, the continuum equation of the medium transmission process in the distributed energy system is obtained. The evaluation indexes of energy saving, and emission reduction effect are selected from the three aspects of power consumption side, power generation side and the system itself to realize the evaluation of energy saving and emission reduction effect. The experimental results show that the evaluation curve obtained by this method is basically consistent with the actual curve, and the evaluation accuracy is high.