Omega-international Journal of Management Science最新文献

{"title":"A trailer-detention-constrained multi-trailer drop-and-pull container drayage problem with flexible service starting time and time windows","authors":"Decheng Wang ,&nbsp;Zhihui Fan ,&nbsp;Yarong Liu ,&nbsp;Ilkyeong Moon","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103422","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103422","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Trailer detention at delivery locations, frequently caused by the time-consuming (un)packing process, presents a significant challenge in container drayage. Despite extensive research on container drayage, the specific issues stemming from trailer detention remain relatively underexplored. This study addresses a trailer-detention-constrained multi-trailer drop-and-pull container drayage problem, incorporating flexible service starting times and time windows. The detained trailers differ from standard trailers as they require only a single pickup operation within the planning horizon, rather than the typical two-step delivery and subsequent pickup. These pickup operations must be completed within specified time windows due to their potential to disrupt logistics efficiency and often require time-sensitive handling. Furthermore, time windows are imposed on normal trailer deliveries, as these operations initiate the (un)packing process, which can impact the operational efficiency of customer activities. The problem involves tractors capable of towing multiple trailers, utilizing the drop-and-pull method for detachment and reattachment. Tractors possess the flexibility to select their service starting times. To address the inherent complexity of this problem, a mixed-integer programming model is developed alongside a tailored heuristic algorithm. The algorithm leverages a modified Clarke-and-Wright algorithm to generate both rapid and high-quality initial solutions. It strategically integrates the mathematical model, ensuring solution quality is maintained without compromising computational efficiency. To further enhance solution efficiency, a route-based release-fix-optimize method is implemented. Extensive computational experiments validate the efficacy of the proposed methods and examine the impact of time windows and detained inbound and outbound requests on transportation plans, offering valuable insights for effectively managing logistics systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103422"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trendsetting in conspicuous consumption: The impact of a resale market","authors":"Kemeng Liu ,&nbsp;Gang Li","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103418","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103418","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social influence, such as snobbish and conformity effects, is believed to play a fundamental role in conspicuous consumption. The rapidly growing market for second-hand luxury products, particularly in the form of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) resale, presents a new opportunity for the conspicuous goods industry. To evaluate the impact of the C2C resale market on conspicuous consumption, we develop a monopoly model over two usage periods, where two types of conspicuous consumers can trade used products on the resale market. We first examine the implications of social influence on conspicuous goods, providing insights into how such products are priced. Then the impact of the C2C resale market on luxury market performance is explored. Interestingly, we find that it prompts different strategic behaviors among snobs and conformists, generating the “trendsetting-following effect.” Furthermore, social externalities within the conspicuous framework amplify the value enhancement effect and mitigate the cannibalization effect of secondary markets on the retailer, ultimately driving market expansion and boosting the retailer’s profit. Although the presence of a secondary market lowers the retail price in the primary market, it increases the retailer’s profit under certain conditions, while it always boosts consumer surplus and social welfare, resulting in a win-win-win situation for consumers, the retailer, and society.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103418"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145057232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A new approach for measuring productivity gaps across groups: an application with historic footballers from FC Barcelona and Real Madrid","authors":"José M. Cordero ,&nbsp;Daniel Santín","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103421","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103421","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The assessment of the productivity gap between two or more groups of production units that operate an equivalent production process in different settings is a common challenge in the field of production analysis. These groups need to determine whether they should keep operating in the same manner to sustain their better performance levels or decide which managerial practices should be altered to close the gap with respect to best practices in other groups. The aim of this paper is to propose a new tool for measuring the productivity gap across different groups based on the use of a synthetic reference group uniformly distributed within a unit hypercube. Besides, as the productivity gap can be decomposed into two components, efficiency gap and global technical gap, this method fulfills the circular test and is independent of a base-reference technology. Thus, it outperforms other traditional approaches. To illustrate the usefulness of this methodology, we analyze the productivity gap between Spanish football’s two biggest rival clubs: FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. We use data on the performance of the most important players in the history of both clubs, divided according to their position on the pitch. The period of analysis covers the last 70 years, from the beginning of European competitions to the present day, i.e., from the 1954/55 to the 2023/24 season. Results show that, to date, Real Madrid’s goalkeepers and midfielders were more productive than those playing for FC Barcelona, there is a tie for defenders, while the productivity of FC Barcelona’s forwards was higher than those playing for Real Madrid.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103421"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145044205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Column generation and local search for the profit-oriented hub-line location problem with elastic demands","authors":"Brenda Cobeña,&nbsp;Claudio Contardo","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103419","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103419","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Population growth and city sprawl have been driving increasing amounts of traffic congestion in multiple major cities worldwide. In this scenario, developing efficient public transportation networks becomes critical to ensure adequate mobility. Hub network location models address the problems of designing public transit networks to model — and to optimize — passenger mobility. More specifically, hub-line location problems (HLLP) play an essential role in the design of rapid transit corridors and subway lines. In this work we address the profit-oriented hub-line location problem (ED-HLLP) for which we introduce a column generation method to solve the linear relaxation of a mixed-integer model and matheuristic that combines column generation and local search. The proposed methodologies lead to the calculation of primal and dual bounds. We assess the performance of the proposed methods on some classic datasets from the HLLP literature. Furthermore, we conduct a study based on real-world data representing the metropolitan area of Montreal, Canada. Finally, we conduct a sensitivity analysis to assess the major attributes driving our results, both from an algorithmic point of view as well as from a planning perspective. The numerical results show that the proposed methods produce high-quality solutions, reduce computational times, and address the model’s combinatorial complexity more effectively than a commercial off-the-shelf solver, allowing for the solution of larger problems otherwise untractable for the latter.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103419"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145018704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Approximate dynamic programming-based thresholds for cargo capacity management considering postponements","authors":"Dhandabani Srinivasan ,&nbsp;R.K. Amit ,&nbsp;Atul Kumar Malik ,&nbsp;Shao Hung Goh","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103416","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103416","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We consider an airline that operates sequential flights in an origin–destination pair. Cargo products are opaque in terms of which specific transportation vessel or routing is used to carry a shipment. Hence, based on the time sensitivity, shipments can be postponed to later flight departures to accommodate the high-value requests. The objective is to assist the airline with joint capacity control and overbooking decisions, considering all the complexities associated with the cargo product. We model the master problem as an infinite-horizon dynamic program (DP) with frequent arrivals and infrequent departures, and relax the cargo divisibility assumption while computing offload costs. We decompose the master problem into several DP sub-problems, with each one focusing on individual flights considered in the study. As the proposed DP sub-problem solution becomes intractable, we resort to approximate dynamic programming to find an implementable solution. Specifically, the space of policies based on control limits or thresholds is looked upon as they are easily implementable. Hence, we use approximate policy iteration to find the implementable solution, where we prove the convergence and existence of such a solution. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed solution of the sub-problem performs 6%–9% better than the first-come, first-served policy and approximates 88%–94% of the upper bound. Additionally, about 4%–10% of revenue improvements are possible if the postponement strategy is considered. Extensions to time-dependent thresholds, aircraft selection, and policy beyond allowable limits are also discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103416"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145018703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Robust battery swapping for e-bike sharing with uncertain covariates and partial outsourcing","authors":"Chengcheng Yu,&nbsp;Lindong Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103385","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103385","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We consider the dynamic battery swapping problem in an e-bike sharing system, where both the swapping demands and covariates (e.g., weather) are random. In this problem, the firm first makes constant insourcing decisions for each shift in a two-shift system, followed by hourly outsourcing decisions based on observed information, including covariates and past demand realizations. Motivated by the identified correlation between covariates and demands, we propose a distributionally robust optimization model with a scenario-wise ambiguity set to address these uncertainties and their interdependencies. We begin by analyzing the value of covariate information in a one-period special case, demonstrating its potential to reduce the over-conservatism of robust solutions. To solve for the multiperiod system, an approximation approach is introduced using the linear decision rule. Exact solution approaches for multiperiod adaptive robust optimization problems are scarce in the literature. To fill this research gap, we introduce a vertex enumeration approach—derived from convex optimization theory—to identify the optimal solution. To address the exponential number of constraints and variables, we design a column-and-constraint generation approach that converges to an optimal solution within a finite number of iterations. Finally, we assess the effectiveness of our proposed solution by comparing its performance to several widely recognized benchmark models through a case study using real-world operational data provided by our industry partner. The findings offer valuable managerial insights for e-bike sharing firms by demonstrating how the integration of covariate information and a combination of insourcing and outsourcing strategies can optimize battery swapping operations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103385"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144932011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Distributionally robust master surgery scheduling with duration uncertainty and specialty parallelism","authors":"Jinfeng Li ,&nbsp;Songzheng Zhao ,&nbsp;Salma Makboul ,&nbsp;Zhongping Zhang ,&nbsp;Yang Wang ,&nbsp;Mingjun Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103417","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103417","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates master surgery scheduling at the tactical decision-making level of operating room (OR) management, addressing uncertainty in surgeons’ surgery durations and parallelism in surgical specialties. The goal is to optimize OR time block types within the scheduling cycle, allocate them efficiently to surgical specialties and surgeons, and determine the appropriate number of surgeries to schedule. Given the limited historical data on surgery durations, we employ a distributionally robust optimization (DRO) approach to address the uncertainty in the distribution. To address the needs of different OR managers, we develop a distributionally robust chance-constrained model to manage overtime that extends beyond the designated OR time blocks. Meanwhile, we construct a distributionally robust bi-objective optimization model with the goals of minimizing the expected total duration of overtime and maximizing the number of surgeries scheduled. These optimization models are reformulated into computationally tractable forms using dual theory. We validate the proposed methods with real hospital data, finding that the DRO approach offers greater stability in scheduling solutions compared to the sample average approximation approach.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103417"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144904107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Robust bi-objective mean-CVaR portfolio selection: Applications to energy sector","authors":"Asmerilda Hitaj ,&nbsp;Elisa Mastrogiacomo ,&nbsp;Elena Molho","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103404","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103404","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A new approach to optimizing or hedging a portfolio of financial positions is presented and tested with applications to energy market. Motivated by uncertainty in the estimation of problem data we consider robust bi-objective optimization problems with mean and conditional value-at-risk objective functions where the underlying probability distribution of portfolio return is only known to belong to a certain set. To tackle the problem of uncertainty we consider two different approaches: in the first one, uncertainty is represented by an elliptic set centered at the sample estimators of mean and covariance matrix; in the second one, uncertainty takes into account experts beliefs. For both approaches, we derive analytical semi-closed-form solutions for the worst case mean-CVaR portfolio; in addition, we provide a characterization of the location of the robust Pareto frontier with respect to the corresponding original Pareto frontier.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103404"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144911946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modularity for hypergraph clustering: Methodologies and applications","authors":"Stefano Benati ,&nbsp;Justo Puerto ,&nbsp;Francisco Temprano","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103387","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103387","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We consider the problem of detecting communities of the vertices of data structures defined as hypergraphs. There are many methods that were devised to find communities on simple graphs, one of the most important being modularity maximization. Therefore we extend the definition of modularity to deal with hypergraphs, too. The new definition considers whether a hyperedge as internal or not to a community, and in the affirmative case, the hyperedge is assigned with a weight defining the level of cohesiveness of their vertices. Next, we formulate a mixed-integer linear programming model to hypergraph modularity maximization, whose optimal solutions consist in the best vertex partitions of the hypergraph. Previous attempts of partitioning hypergraphs did suggest the projection of hyperedges onto simple graphs, replacing every hyperedge with a complete subgraph. So, we compare our proposal with the previous methodologies, including other hypergraph modularity definitions, and we find that we improve the quality of the partition. Finally, we apply the methodology to the analysis of survey data, and we show how hypergraph modularity clustering highlights some peculiar data structures that otherwise would remain hidden to researchers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103387"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144893458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Distributionally robust optimisation approach for aircraft sequencing and scheduling with learning-driven arrival and departure time predictions","authors":"Chenliang Zhang ,&nbsp;Zhongyi Jin ,&nbsp;Kam K.H. Ng ,&nbsp;Tie-Qiao Tang ,&nbsp;Rong Tang","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103415","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103415","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As air traffic demand grows, some airspace systems are nearing capacity. Optimising runway utilisation is a key strategy for increasing capacity. To enhance efficiency and robustness in aircraft sequencing and scheduling under uncertainty, we introduce two prescriptive analytics approaches. First, the estimate-then-optimise (ETO) approach uses a machine learning method to estimate probability distributions, which inform a stochastic programming (SP) model for the aircraft sequencing and scheduling problem (ASSP). However, prediction and sampling errors may affect decision quality. To mitigate this, we replace the SP model with a distributionally robust optimisation (DRO) model, proposing the estimate-then-distributionally-robust-optimise (ETDRO) approach. Given the complexity of solving DRO models, we develop decomposition methods to improve computational efficiency. Numerical experiments show that ETDRO consistently delivers high-quality decisions, outperforming benchmark optimisation approaches. Meanwhile, the proposed inexact decomposition methods significantly improve computational performance, enabling the real-world implementation of ETDRO.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103415"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144888780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}