In einer von Vernetzung und Globalisierung geprägten Umwelt wächst der Wettbewerbsdruck auf die Unternehmen am Markt stetig. Die effektive Nutzung der Ressourcen einerseits und die enge Zusammenarbeit mit Lieferanten und Kunden andererseits führen für nicht wenige Unternehmen des industriellen Sektors zu entscheidenden Wettbewerbsvorteilen, die das Fortbestehen jener Unternehmen am Markt sichern. Viele Unternehmen verstehen sich aus diesem Grund als Bestandteil so genannter Supply Chains. Die unternehmensübergreifende Steuerung und Optimierung des Wertschöpfungsprozesses stellt ein charakteristisches Problem des Supply Chain Managements dar und besitzt zur Erzielung von Wettbewerbsvorteilen hohes Potential. Produktionsnetzwerke sind ein wesentlicher Forschungsschwerpunkt der Professur für Produktionswirtschaft und Industriebetriebslehre an der TU Chemnitz. Das Extended Value Chain Management (EVCM) stellt ein kompetenzorientiertes Konzept für die Bildung und zum Betrieb hierarchieloser temporärer regionaler Produktionsnetzwerke im Sinne virtueller Unternehmen dar. Gegenstand dieser Arbeit ist ein diskretes Optimierungsproblem, dass einen mehrstufigen Entscheidungsprozesses unter Berücksichtigung mehrerer Ziele abbildet, der sich bei der Auswahl möglicher Partner in einem Produktionsnetzwerk nach dem Betreiberkonzept des EVCM ergibt. Da mehrere Zielstellungen bestehen, werden grundlegende Methoden der mehrkriteriellen Optimierung und Entscheidung erörtert. Neben der Vorstellung des Problems sollen mehrzielorientierte Ansätze im Sinne einer Pareto-Optimierung auf Basis des Dynamic Programmings als Verfahren zur Bestimmung von Optimallösungen sowie Ant Colony Optimization zur näherungsweisen Lösung vorgestellt werden. Darauf aufbauend werden verschiedene Möglichkeiten der Hybridisierung beider Methoden diskutiert. Die entwickelten Ansätze werden auf ihre Eignung im Rahmen der informationstechnischen Umsetzung des EVCM-Konzepts untersucht und einer Evaluierung unterzogen. Hierzu werden verschiedene Kennzahlen zur Beurteilung der Verfahren entwickelt. Die modellierten Algorithmen und entwickelten Konzepte beschränken sich nicht ausschließlich auf das betrachtete Problem, sondern können leicht auf Probleme mit ähnlichen Eigenschaften übertragen werden. Insbesondere das NP-vollständige mehrkriterielle Kürzeste-Wege-Problem stellt einen Spezialfall des behandelten Optimierungsproblems dar.

Asset management and automation are acknowledged by distribution utilities as a useful strategy to improve service quality and reliability. However, the major challenge faced by decision makers in distribution utilities is how to achieve long-term return on the projects while minimising investment and operation costs. Distribution automation (DA) in terms of transformer economic operation (TEO), distribution network reconfiguration (DNR), and sectionalising switch placement (SSP) is recognised as the most effective way for distribution network operators (DNOs) to increase operation efficiency and reliability. Automated tie-switches and sectionalising switches play a fundamental role in distribution networks. A method based on the Monte Carlo simulation is discussed for transformer loss reduction, which comprises of profile generators of residential demand and a distribution network model. The ant colony optimisation (ACO) algorithm is then developed for optimal DNR and TEO to minimise network loss. An ACO algorithm based on a fuzzy multi-objective approach is proposed to solve SSP problem, which considers reliability indices and switch costs. Finally, a multi-objective ant colony optimisation (MOACO) and an artificial immune systems-ant colony optimisation (AIS-ACO) algorithm are developed to solve the reconfiguration problem, which is formulated within a multi-objective framework using the concept of Pareto optimality. The performance of the optimisation techniques has been assessed and illustrated by various case studies on three distribution networks. The obtained optimum network configurations indicate the effectiveness of the proposed methods for optimal DA.

abstract: This thesis presents a successful application of operations research techniques in nonprofit distribution system to improve the distribution efficiency and increase customer service quality. It focuses on truck routing problems faced by St. Mary’s Food Bank Distribution Center. This problem is modeled as a capacitated vehicle routing problem to improve the distribution efficiency and is extended to capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows to increase customer service quality. Several heuristics are applied to solve these vehicle routing problems and tested in well-known benchmark problems. Algorithms are tested by comparing the results with the plan currently used by St. Mary’s Food Bank Distribution Center. The results suggest heuristics are quite completive: average 17% less trucks and 28.52% less travel time are used in heuristics’ solution. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Industrial Engineering 2015

In the last decades there has been a lot of interest in computational models and metaheuristics algorithms capable to solve combinatorial optimization problems. The recent trend is to define these algorithms taking inspiration by the observation of natural systems. In this thesis the Ant Colony System (ACS) is presented which has been inspired by the observation of real ant colonies. ACS is initially proposed to solve the symmetric and asymmetric travelling salesman problems where it is shown to be competitive with other metaheuristics. Although this is an interesting and promising result, it was immediately clear that ACS, as well as other metaheuristics, in many cases cannot compete with specialized local search methods. An interesting trend is therefore to couple metaheuristics with a local optimizer, giving birth to so-called hybrid methods. Along this line, the thesis investigates MACS-VRPTW (Multiple ACS for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows) and HAS-SOP: Hybrid Ant System for the Sequential Ordering Problem (SOP). In the second part the thesis introduces some modifications of the original ACS algorithm. These modifications are able to speed up the method and to make it more competitive in case of large problem instances. The resulting framework, called Enhanced Ant Colony System is tested for the SOP. Finally the thesis presents the application of ACS to solve real-life vehicle routing problems where additional constraints and stochastic information are included. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Roteamento por colônia de formigas é um método de roteamento em redes de comunicação, e diversos algoritmos foram propostos nos últimos anos baseado nessa estrutura. Todos esses algoritmos produzem excelentes resultados, provando a sua eficiência e eficácia. Este trabalho apresenta os resultados de desempenho dos principais algoritmos encontrados na literatura, e com base nesses resultados, propõe um novo algoritmo com desempenho equivalente e com uma complexidade computacional menor. O trabalho é focalizado em redes tipo datagrama com topologia irregular, descrevendo suas propriedades e características e realizando uma análise e comparação de seus desempenhos em um ambiente de simulação. / Ant Colony Routing is an adaptive method for routing in communication networks, and several algorithms have been proposed in the last years based on this framework. All these algorithms show excellent results, proving their efficiency and efficacy. This work presents the results of the performance of the main algorithms found in the literature, and based on these results, it proposes a novel algorithm that has a similar performance but with a lower computational complexity. The work is focused in datagram like networks with irregular topology, describing its characteristics and properties. The performances in an simulation environment are analysed and compared.

M. Ing. / Fault detection tools have gained popularity in recent years due to the increasing need for reliable and predictable equipments. Transformer bushings account for the majority of transformer faults. Hence, to uphold the integrity of the power transmission and dis- tribution system, a tool to detect and identify faults in their developing stage is necessary in transformer bushings. Among the numerous tools for bushings monitoring, dissolved gas analysis (DGA) is the most commonly used. The advances in DGA and data storage capabilities have resulted in large amount of data and ultimately, the data analysis crisis. Consequent to that, computational intelligence methods have advanced to deal with this data analysis problem and help in the decision-making process. Numerous computational intelligence approaches have been proposed for bushing fault detection. Most of these approaches focus on the accuracy of prediction and not much research has been allocated to investigate the interpretability of the decisions derived from these systems. This work proposes a rough set theory (RST) model for bushing fault detection based on DGA data analyzed using the IEEEc57.104 and the IEC 60599 standards. RST is a rule-based technique suitable for analyzing vague, uncertain and imprecise data. RST extracts rules from the data to model the system. These rules are used for prediction and interpreting the decision process. The lesser the number of rules, the easier it is to interpret the model. The performance of the RST is dependent on the discretization technique employed. An equal frequency bin (EFB), Boolean reasoning (BR) and entropy partition (EP) are used to develop an RST model. The model trained using EFB data performs better than the models trained using BR and EP. The accuracy achieved is 96.4%, 96.0% and 91.3% for EFB, BR and EP respectively. This work also pro poses an ant colony optimization (ACO) for discretization. A model created using ACO discretized achieved an accuracy of 96.1%, which is compatible with the three methods above. When considering the overall performance, the ACO is a better discretization tool since it produces an accurate model with the least number of rules. The rough set tool proposed in this work is benchmarked against a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and radial basis function (RBF) neural networks. Results prove that RST modeling for bushing is equally as capable as the MLP and better than RBF. The RST, MLP and RBF are used in an ensemble of classifiers. The ensemble performs better than the standalone models.

The subject of the thesis is the optimization of one the key processes in a book company, namely warehouse logistics. This problem consist of two parts; first part focuses on route optimization of completion of customers' orders on daily basis, second part focuses on assigning of storage subsystems and their interconnection. The proposed solution uses a traveller salesman problem implemented into intranet application. Second problem was designed as quadratic assignment problem with use of ex post data analysis. On the basis of achieved results, we presented effective procedures for solving both of aforementioned problems and suggested their implementation into the company's enterprise resource planning system. Keywords:

Um desafio recorrente em processos produtivos é o desenvolvimento de sistemas de monitoração e diagnóstico. Esses sistemas ajudam na detecção de mudanças inesperadas e interrupções, prevenindo perdas e mitigando riscos. Redes Neurais Artificiais (RNA) têm sido largamente utilizadas na criação de sistemas de monitoração. Normalmente as RNA utilizadas para resolver este tipo de problema são criadas levando-se em conta apenas parâmetros como o número de entradas, saídas e quantidade de neurônios nas camadas escondidas. Assim, as redes resultantes geralmente possuem uma configuração onde há uma total conexão entre os neurônios de uma camada e os da camada seguinte, sem que haja melhorias em sua topologia. Este trabalho utiliza o algoritmo de Otimização por Colônia de Formigas (OCF) para criar redes neurais otimizadas. O algoritmo de busca OCF utiliza a técnica de retropropagação de erros para otimizar a topologia da rede neural sugerindo as melhores conexões entre os neurônios. A RNA resultante foi aplicada para monitorar variáveis do reator de pesquisas IEA-R1 do IPEN. Os resultados obtidos mostram que o algoritmo desenvolvido é capaz de melhorar o desempenho do modelo que estima o valor de variáveis do reator. Em testes com diferentes números de neurônios na camada escondida, utilizando como comparativos o erro quadrático médio, o erro absoluto médio e o coeficiente de correlação, o desempenho da RNA otimizada foi igual ou superior ao da tradicional. / A recurring challenge in production processes is the development of monitoring and diagnosis systems. Those systems help on detecting unexpected changes and interruptions, preventing losses and mitigating risks. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been extensively used in creating monitoring systems. Usually the ANN used to solve this kind of problem are created by taking into account only parameters as the number of inputs, outputs, and number of neurons in the hidden layers. This way, the result networks are generally fully connected and have no improvements in its topology. This work uses an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to create a tuned neural networks. The ACO search algorithm uses Back Error Propagation (BP) to optimize the network topology by suggesting the best neuron connections. The outcome ANN was applied to monitoring the IEA-R1 research reactor at IPEN. The results show that the algorithm is able to improve the performance of the model which estimates the values of the reactor variables. In tests with different numbers of neurons in the hidden layer, using as comparison the mean squared error, the mean absolute error, and the correlation coefficient, the performance of the optimized ANN proved equal or better than the equivalent traditional neural networks.

Ant algorithms have been used for a variety of combinatorial optimization problems. One of these problems, where ant algorithms haven't been used, is the design of transition rules for cellular automata (CA). Which is a problem that this master's thesis is focused on. This work begins with an introduction into ant algorithms and a overview of its applications, followed by an introduction into CA. In the next part the author proposes a way how to encode rules of CA into a graph which is used in ant algorithms. The last part of this thesis contains an application of encoded graph on elitist ant system and MAX-MIN ant system. This is followed by experimental results of creating transition rules for CA problems by these algorithms.

This diploma thesis deals with optimization of planar antennas on the Electromagnetic Bandgap (EBG) substrates by the help of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). This method is based on the communications mechanisms of a real ant colony. Firstly, the working principle of the planar antennas and the theory of the Ant Colony Optimization are analyzed. Next, the description of the working principle of the Electromagnetic Bandgap and generally physical phenomena accompanying electromagnetic waves propagation in a periodic medium are given. In the second part of this thesis, the ACO was implemented into the VBA language, and was applied to two models of planar antennas. These models were created in the CST Microwave Studio. After an optimization of the antennas the results were evaluated, and the optimization of one of the antennas was compared to the optimization methods in CST Microwave Studio. Then, the standard substrate of the second model was replaced by the EBG substrate, and the results were confronted. Two types of EBG lattice were used. The design procedure of the square lattice was described, and the dispersion diagram was created in the CST Microwave Studio. In the final part of thesis, the verification of the results was carried out in Ansoft HFSS, and the results from both simulation programs were compared to each other.