Search

The European Union, its member states and local authorities have been working for long time on the design of solutions for future sustainable mobility. The promotion of a sustainable and affordable urban transport contemplates the bicycle as a mean of transport. The reasons for analysing the cycling mobility in urban areas, has its origin in the confrontation with motorized vehicles, as a sustainable response to the environment. In this context of sustainable mobility, the research team has studied the use of bicycles in Mediterranean cities, specifically in coastal tourist areas. The present work shows the development of a mobility index oriented to the bicycle, transport that competes with the private vehicle. By means of a survey methodology, the research group proceeded to collect field data and the subsequent analysis of them, for the development of a mobility index adapted to bicycle mobility, and with possibilities to adapt to urban environments.

This paper proposes a novel, exact procedure for the joint determination of the reorder point and the price, given that demand is a power function of price and the objective is profit maximization. Some examples illustrate the effect of elasticity on the existence of a profit optimum; in fact just elastic demand items present such optima. The procedure presented in this paper overcomes others in the literature because an exact profit function is used instead of an approximate one.

Clean air is a basic requirement of human health and well-being. However, in 2014, 92% of the population lived in places where the World Health Organization Guidelines on air quality were not respected. Different projects and studies at European, national and local levels raise strategies to fight against atmospheric pollution through the control and reduction of primary emissions from the source. In this work, the data collection and valorization will be done both by direct observation of the researcher, and also totally automated by immovable systems installed in the urban area. With these measurements, the air quality in an urban environment will be analyzed, together with urban mobility developed in this area, in order to characterize the interactions between both variables. Finally, this work presents a proposal, made to the local authorities, on decision-making concerning urban logistics, mainly in the city center.

Cities are a huge growing market for distribution companies (logistics), whose object is to cover goods/products supply requirements, deliver parcels and replenish stocks. Supplying the companies and businesses located in cities is a daily challenge for any logistics company. Among various existing city models, the so-called compact cities presently tend to have more pedestrian zones in cities, which consequently affect surrounding areas; e.g., limited parking areas, restricted access for traffic, difficulties to enter with goods, and even access difficulties for the neighbors who live in these areas. The main objective of this work was to analyze logistic flows by paying special attention to the detailed description of traffic that depends on the urban outline in order to analyze the logistic flows of goods, and to discuss different policies to improve urban goods logistics without forgetting that routes exist and form part of a the development of a more humane city, where delivery vehicles enter pedestrian zones. This study focused on the center of the city of Cartagena (Spain), a Mediterranean compact city characterized by having numerous pedestrian zones.

[EN] European cities are facing enormous challenges in accessibility and livability terms due to several European directives, which are compulsory in the mid/long term, traffic congestion levels are still increasing, and air pollution and noise disturbs citizens’ lives. This work presents the study carried out in a Mediterranean city to define an Environmental Zone with traffic restrictions for vehicles in the historical centre of the city of Cartagena (Spain) by exploring different urban logistics measures to tackle main problems caused by freight deliveries and pickups in the city centre. These solutions aimed to enhance the efficiency of vehicles, and to reduce both traffic congestion the environmental impacts caused by freight delivery in the city in order to improve urban sustainability., The research that has led to these results forms part of the work conducted by the students of the subject “Industrial Logistics” in the Master of Industrial Engineering during academic year 2016-2017 at the Technical University of Cartagena.

Več kot 90 % starostnikov bi se rado postaralo tam, kjer živijo. To idejo podpirajo tudi strateški načrti Evropskega semestra za dolgotrajno oskrbo (ang. European semesters on long-term care) za države članice, vendar ne vključujejo dovolj inovacij, da bi resnično izboljšali življenjske razmere starejših z ustrezno opremljenim okoljem in vzdržnim financiranjem. Prostorsko razpršenost bivališč in gostoto poselitve v funkcionalnem območju bi morala pri načrtovanju grajenega okolja in drugih objektov za starejše posebej upoštevati vodstva ustanov, ki starejšim zagotavljajo namestitev, zdravstveno oskrbo in druge storitve, saj so cene logistike (prevoz materiala, delovna sila, prevoz starostnikov v dnevne programe …) precej odvisne od teh dveh dejavnikov. Na podlagi podatkov doma za ostarele v eni od madžarskih občin smo ocenili in optimizirali načrtovanje poti ter razporejanje za potrebe oskrbe starostnikov na domu glede na različne možne prostorske razpršitve in z različno gostoto strank. Poti negovalnega osebja, ki oskrbuje starostnike, smo simulirali po modelu multiple travelling salesman problem, rešitve pa navajajo potrebno delovno silo in časovne zahteve za opravljanje storitev. Orodje, ki nam je omogočilo proučiti izide različnih možnosti, bi lahko tudi stroki pomagalo pri predvidevanju in načrtovanju prihodnjih sprememb pri stroških dolgotrajne oskrbe zaradi vse večjega števila starejših, ki bodo pri ohranjanju samostojnosti potrebovali pomoč, spreminjata pa se tudi gostota in razpršenost gospodinjstev.

Over 90% of seniors prefer to age in place, which is an idea supported by the European Semesters on Long-Term Care strategic plans for member states, but they do not have the necessary innovation to improve the living of the elderly in a properly built environment with sustainable financing. The spatial dispersion of housing and density in a functional area should be particularly taken into consideration by facilities’ managers and medical care institutions offering housing, healthcare and other services for the elderly in planning the built environment and other facilities for seniors because the costs of logistics (material transport, nurse workload, costs of other service providers, and transport of seniors in the case of daily programmes) greatly depend on it. Using data from a care centre in a Hungarian municipality, we simulated and optimised home healthcare routing and scheduling in various scenarios of spatial dispersion and changing density of clients. We modelled the rounds of caregivers visiting seniors in homecare as a multiple travelling salesman problem, and the solutions show the necessary workforce and service time requirements. The tool that enabled us to study the outputs of scenarios might help professionals forecast and plan for coming changes in the costs of nursing services caused by the growing number of seniors that may need help in maintaining their independence as long as possible, taking into account that the density and dispersion of households are also changing.

This paper describes a project to increase a food manufacturer’s productivity by applying several Lean Manufacturing techniques to the company’s manufacturing organization and production quality. As a conclusion, the paper highlights the company’s developed performance as a result of addressing such issues as clean and order at the workplace, machinery breakdowns, and quick tools changeover.

Central and Eastern European countries are lacking well-developed home care systems that would balance quality, equity and costs even more with the advancing population ageing. In this study we propose a home health care (HHC) routing and workforce scheduling algorithm, that considers a possibility of using electric bicycles instead of the currently used combination of public transport (buses) and walking. The coordination of aims, such the optimal allocation of care resources, the reduction of transport costs, sustainability and environmental awareness is tackled.

The current economic crisis is reflected in lower capacity expansion or even capacity contraction, closing of distant activities and reduction of lead time. However, the locations of suppliers are strongly connected with the quality of agricultural products. The transportation from distant locations can largely affect the food production business in all aspects. The article presents how the Extended Material Requirements Planning (EMRP) model enables to evaluate perturbations in lead time and temperature, and shows how distant growing areas of agricultural products, and, as a result, transportation lead times play a crucial role in the net present value calculation. In this paper, we show the impact of choosing a less distant site for growing of agricultural products, and overlapping the transportation and quarantine lead times on decreasing the perishability, hence increasing the added value in multi-level food assembly systems. Also, a case study of Spanish baby food industry is presented, using the principles of the well-developed EMRP Theory.

The integration of functions in business networks requires a high level of integration of the information processes. Based on file transfers, these networks respond to the requirements of collaborative processes. There is an effective need for a strategy of integration among the members of the network. In the ICT era, the collaborative company needs to reach and maintain agility in the dynamics of their collaborative processes. Within the frame of a collaborative network, the development of a web platform permits the growth of an area that integrates collaborative processes, in which several companies participate, each supplying their own data. The Fruit-and-Vegetable Collaborative Network studied in this paper is formed by producers, processers, packaging companies, marketers, transporters, and distributors. It has been developed via a web platform (Virtual Office), which allows the network to carry out processes in a collaborative way, and helps the network in its process of confidence-building and in the interactions among its members.

GrEta is an innovative simulat ion project, what was constructed in Szabó -Szoba R&D Laboratory at Széchenyi University Gyõr, for modelling the nature of flexible production processes. It is one of the best ways to demonstrate the most commonly occurring logistics phenomena in series of mass production on the learning-by-doing way. As the latest development in the GrEta environment we applied the visual kanban method to highlight the difference between push and pull production systems. The GrEta plotting board is also equipped with an automatic t ime measurement system, to register all the data the participants need to form KPIs, create an adaptable evaluating scheme and support the decision making process. The aim of this paper is to sum up the theory of kanban and to describe how we integrated it into the GrEta plotting board as a new phase of the development of our learning-by-doing training environment.

The work presented in this paper focuses on the construction of a prototype for strategic design of nodes in a logistics network (PROCONET project). It incorporates the necessary concepts, models and supporting tools related to the design of the process flow and the choice of technology. The operation of the prototype will be validated with global supply chain processes for perishable products. Global supply chain processes will consider both full loads and groupages. Special attention will be given to the impact of INCOTERM agreements. The prototype will support intermodal logistics processes as an added value.

The objective of this article is to show the improvement reached by a ceramic logistics operator using an approximate algorithm for cargo of logistics of many different products with different weights and volumes. This algorithm, which has been used successfully for efficient assignment in logistics industry, where many different products in small but heavy items have to be distributed, can improve road transport efficiency for clients’ orders in the minimum time and with the least possible costs. The paper describes how it could increase efficiency in logistics in a ceramic industry (from the initiation of activities and over several days to the end of the job cycle) and similar heavy and small items production when time and costs play the role in function criterion. The algorithm is based on several priority rules. Real life application of the algorithm developed here has been running on a time horizon of more than one week. Though the results of the first steps (initial solution) of algorithm are not as good as the results of already known algorithms for transportation assignments, the algorithm is improving the value of criterion function rapidly, during further iterations dealing with the sequences of daily assignments, which is a major improvement in applications for such types of algorithms, known up until now. The algorithm was a well accepted development and seen as very beneficial to the ceramics industry.

La fluctuación de los precios es una práctica utilizada normalmente por los empresarios para estimular la demanda. Asumiendo un patrón de demanda tipo escalón, que responde elásticamente a la fluctuación de los precios ofrecidos por el minorista al cliente final, se analizará, utilizando el modelo dinámico de gestión de cadena de suministro propuesto por Campuzano (2006), como influyen dichas fluctuaciones en la variabilidad de las órdenes generadas a lo largo de una Cadena de Suministro Tradicional multinivel. Además, utilizando los resultados obtenidos, se propone un modelo de previsión para calcular la posible variación de las órdenes generadas en cada nivel, a partir del patrón de precios utilizado.

The Bullwhip effect is one of the main causes of instability in the management demand process along the Supply Chain. Nowadays there are different supply chain management structures based on collaboration among the companies which integrate the same chain. That collaboration may reduce the Bullwhip Effect. In this paper some of said structures are modelled and simulated under Vensim© software, in particular, Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and Electronic Point of Sales (EPOS). Simulation results are compared to those offered by Traditional Supply Chain. Moreover these mentioned Supply Chain Management Models are built under Systems Dynamic Methodology, which allow the manager to recreate different management scenarios and choose those which match with the company targets (tactic or operative ones).

The LEGOstics training programs are under continuous development in Industrial Management Laboratory at UPCT (Spain), working together with Szabo-Szoba R&D Laboratory at Szechenyi University (Gyӧr, Hungary). The main purpose of these innovative simulation projects is to construct special real-life environments for modeling logistics systems and phenomena (the nature of product and information flow in a supply chain, the meaning of delivery in time shipments, material handling and order picking processes of a warehouse or a factory, flexible manufacturing, work-in-process inventory management, lean thinking, etc). During the learning-by-doing LEGOstics trainings participants can get practical knowledge and develop many innovative skills to be able to construct, design and re-engineer sustainable and efficient logistics processes, and feel the responsibility of making decisions. In our paper we present how we implemented LEGOstics concept into the formal education focusing on the experiences we got during 2011–2013 at Technical University of Cartagena (Spain).

Spain is the first European producer and exporter of fresh fruits and vegetables. SMEs need to join forces, through collaboration, to make a continuous innovative effort to add value to the sector and face foreign competition. A collaborative network is the way for companies to share abilities and resources, processes and technology. This paper presents the development of a logistic network model, for the fruit-and vegetable companies, based on maturity models. This approach will allow evaluating, in an objective way, the state of the companies and the network from the views of the selected maturity models, the purpose of which is to establish the level of integration and collaboration within the studied network, and to propose evolutionary improvements in the network’s collaborative processes.

The first try of define the whole engineering system (from the level of financial regulation to the details of technological process) in single standard mathematical base is made in the paper. Suggested description takes into account the conditions of diverse States (including the laws) where the business activity is realized. Owing to that it allows to apply the description in the new cybernetic technologies (with networks and data bases) in business contacts of countries with diverse constructions, in that number the contacts of stable States with reconstructing regions.

The work presented in this paper focuses on the analysis of processes the fruit-and-vegetable supply chain. It is in a context of innovation and new technologies where the project is defined and initiated due to the need for improvements in logistics and transport of perishable goods. The paper presents the operational model of enterprises currently working within the fruit-and-vegetable supply chain, and an analysis of the collaborative network will be carried out throughout the enterprises or agents integrating it, as well as on the processes performed by each of these agents.

This paper discusses how the elasticity of final demand influences the bullwhip amplification when sudden economic changes appear along the entire multi-level supply chain. Increased variability of prices does not affect added value substantially in a supply chain where the price elasticity of demand is small (around 0.1) but with an elasticity of 10 or more, high price variances may result in significant losses. A traditional model of dynamic supply chain structure is used for our study, based on the seminal work of Forrester. A simulation platform for supply chain management with stochastic demand has been developed to study such a phenomenon. Vensim® simulation software was used for developing the appropriate supply chain dynamic models. The aim of our study is to gain a deeper insight into the processes in a logistic chain, at different elasticities of price demand.

Health care organization management needs modeling techniques that allows to explain and manage it as the real world it self. This similarity between real world and model represents the key of success. A model characteristic represents the guide lines to manage it, and if this model is represented with a data model and an Information system it makes possible to be implemented in a computer based system. This chapter offers a hierarchical representation model and with different model views of the health care organizations, allowing being applied the business integration architecture, it is a way to transfer the organization approaches from the Industrial world to the Health Care world. To reach it is necessary to represent all the activities performed by a health care organization with the process map, linking the map with the structures of the organization that connects the different map points (resource-operation), developing the organization model. It is necessary that the decision making rules are implemented in the organization model to include in it the “intelligence”. The decision making rules to reach the organization rules are the Planning and Operation control system, and though it can be integrated the goals, activity and resources.