CFP: Cutting, Packing and Space Allocation: Annals of OR
Forum 'Annonces' - Sujet créé le 2007-05-23
Call for Papers: Special Issue of Annals of Operations Research on Cutting, Packing and Space Allocation
We invite papers for a special issue of Annals of Operations Research on Cutting, Packing and Space Allocation.
Below we present some areas which would be of interest, but we welcome papers which address any areas of Cutting, Packing and Space Allocation.
Cutting, Packing and Layout:
Cutting, packing and layout arise in a wide range of industries. The problem, typically, involves the placement of objects (possibly for subsequent cutting) onto sheets or rolls of material with the requirement that the objects must not overlap and must not exceed the boundaries of the sheets/rolls. This problem occurs in the paper, textile, leather, wood, glass and metal cutting industries, as well as many others. In general, the objective is to minimise waste material. However, minimising waste may not be the only consideration. The paper and glass cutting industries are usually restricted to guillotine packing (where only horizontal or vertical cuts entirely spanning the sheet must be made) and the final layout must reflect this requirement. The metal cutting industry is not normally restricted in this way. However, they have their own set of constraints which are generated by high temperature gas cutting, overall cut-times and heat distribution. In general, the constrain!
ts imposed on the problem are a consequence of the physical properties of the material being cut and the practicalities of the cutting method being employed. In today's competition driven climate it has become increasingly important to produce good solutions quickly and cheaply. This has led to an increase in scientific interest in the automation of the packing process and the development of automation strategies. Since the problem's infancy, automated approaches have utilised many different techniques which include: linear and dynamic programming, problem specific heuristic methods, local search methods and, more recently, meta-heuristic methods such as genetic and evolutionary algorithms, artificial neural networks and simulated annealing.
Space Allocation:
Space management in both commercial and public sector environments is becoming increasingly important. For example, the University sector in the United Kingdom had buildings valued with an Insurance Replacement Value of £31.0 billion in 2000/01 with annual expenditure on the estate of £1,373 million. The utilisation of the estate is calculated as the product of the frequency of use of individual rooms and the associated occupancy at a particular time. Needless to say, a poorly utilised estate results in significant over expenditure on both capital and operational budgets across the sector. HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) reported a mean frequency value of 51% across UK institutions and a mean occupancy rate of 52%. This gives a mean utilisation rate of 26.5%. This massive inefficiency in the use of space is, at least partly if not wholly, due to the poor allocation of space within institutions. Outside the university sector, it is easy to see how more ef!
fective utilisation of space could make a major impact on a wide range of commercial and government organisations. The investigation of adaptive multi-objective meta-heuristics to space allocation is a new and challenging research area that aims to produce effective, efficient and real world relevant optimisation methods to tackle this difficult problem environment. The application of computer systems for the automation of space allocation and space planning in academic institutions is relatively recent. The first reports in this area include the application of linear and integer programming approaches that were designed to solve specific problem instances. More recently meta-heuristic approaches have been applied to this problem. That research has helped to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a range of meta-heuristics in order to develop novel and effective hybrid approaches but there is still much scope for more in depth investigations.
When preparing your paper, you should follow the author guidelines (see below) for AOR. All submitted papers will undergo the normal peer review process for any high quality journal.
The deadline for submission is the 30th September 2007.
We look forward to receiving your paper.
IMPORTANT DATE
30th September 2007: Manuscript Submission
ANNALS OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH HOME PAGE
http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=101740
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
Follow the above link and click on "Manuscript Submission". Next click on "Instructions for Authors".
Follow the layout guidelines given on that page.
Your submission should be EMAIL'ed, as a single PDF or Word file, to Graham Kendall (gxk@cs.nott.ac.uk).
Graham Kendall, Karen Daniels and Edmund Burke (Guest Editors)
We invite papers for a special issue of Annals of Operations Research on Cutting, Packing and Space Allocation.
Below we present some areas which would be of interest, but we welcome papers which address any areas of Cutting, Packing and Space Allocation.
Cutting, Packing and Layout:
Cutting, packing and layout arise in a wide range of industries. The problem, typically, involves the placement of objects (possibly for subsequent cutting) onto sheets or rolls of material with the requirement that the objects must not overlap and must not exceed the boundaries of the sheets/rolls. This problem occurs in the paper, textile, leather, wood, glass and metal cutting industries, as well as many others. In general, the objective is to minimise waste material. However, minimising waste may not be the only consideration. The paper and glass cutting industries are usually restricted to guillotine packing (where only horizontal or vertical cuts entirely spanning the sheet must be made) and the final layout must reflect this requirement. The metal cutting industry is not normally restricted in this way. However, they have their own set of constraints which are generated by high temperature gas cutting, overall cut-times and heat distribution. In general, the constrain!
ts imposed on the problem are a consequence of the physical properties of the material being cut and the practicalities of the cutting method being employed. In today's competition driven climate it has become increasingly important to produce good solutions quickly and cheaply. This has led to an increase in scientific interest in the automation of the packing process and the development of automation strategies. Since the problem's infancy, automated approaches have utilised many different techniques which include: linear and dynamic programming, problem specific heuristic methods, local search methods and, more recently, meta-heuristic methods such as genetic and evolutionary algorithms, artificial neural networks and simulated annealing.
Space Allocation:
Space management in both commercial and public sector environments is becoming increasingly important. For example, the University sector in the United Kingdom had buildings valued with an Insurance Replacement Value of £31.0 billion in 2000/01 with annual expenditure on the estate of £1,373 million. The utilisation of the estate is calculated as the product of the frequency of use of individual rooms and the associated occupancy at a particular time. Needless to say, a poorly utilised estate results in significant over expenditure on both capital and operational budgets across the sector. HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) reported a mean frequency value of 51% across UK institutions and a mean occupancy rate of 52%. This gives a mean utilisation rate of 26.5%. This massive inefficiency in the use of space is, at least partly if not wholly, due to the poor allocation of space within institutions. Outside the university sector, it is easy to see how more ef!
fective utilisation of space could make a major impact on a wide range of commercial and government organisations. The investigation of adaptive multi-objective meta-heuristics to space allocation is a new and challenging research area that aims to produce effective, efficient and real world relevant optimisation methods to tackle this difficult problem environment. The application of computer systems for the automation of space allocation and space planning in academic institutions is relatively recent. The first reports in this area include the application of linear and integer programming approaches that were designed to solve specific problem instances. More recently meta-heuristic approaches have been applied to this problem. That research has helped to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a range of meta-heuristics in order to develop novel and effective hybrid approaches but there is still much scope for more in depth investigations.
When preparing your paper, you should follow the author guidelines (see below) for AOR. All submitted papers will undergo the normal peer review process for any high quality journal.
The deadline for submission is the 30th September 2007.
We look forward to receiving your paper.
IMPORTANT DATE
30th September 2007: Manuscript Submission
ANNALS OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH HOME PAGE
http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=101740
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
Follow the above link and click on "Manuscript Submission". Next click on "Instructions for Authors".
Follow the layout guidelines given on that page.
Your submission should be EMAIL'ed, as a single PDF or Word file, to Graham Kendall (gxk@cs.nott.ac.uk).
Graham Kendall, Karen Daniels and Edmund Burke (Guest Editors)