Winter in Northern Sweden comes with very harsh and unpredictable condition associated with large amounts of snowfall covering roadways thereby affecting transportation by roads. When the road conditions i.e. the snow depth, road unevenness and friction of the road surface are accessed and found to exceed the threshold, a maintenance action must be carried out to retain the road to the required condition for the user. The aim of maintenance, in this case, is to make the road comfortable, safe and economical for the road user. Decision support system, therefore, comes in handy to facilitate on deciding what maintenance action to carry out and when the action should be carried out, where the action should be carried out and how to go about the action based on the various data and resources available. This thesis project concentrates on how to carry out a winter road maintenance after receiving an alert of an action to carry out, when to carry it out and the road network that needs to be maintained. The thesis work focusses only on two of the winter road maintenance actions namely snow ploughing of bus stops in Luleå and application of abrasives commonly referred to as sanding of bus stops. Carrying out winter road maintenance comes at a huge cost from both direct and indirect costs with the Swedish government spending about SEK 1.75 billion every year as indicated by Jana Sochor and Cecilia Yu (Sochor & Yu, 2004). This means that reduction in the maintenance cost of even 5% through optimisation of the maintenance cost would translate into a saving of about 87.5 million SEK per year and in 10 years could amount to close to 1 billion SEK. Optimization also leads to efficiency and effectiveness that could result in improved movement on the road and reduced environmental and social-economic impacts. Maintenance planning thus becomes essential for the effective and efficient execution of work and utilisation of the available scarce resource. This thesis project focusses on the use of Operations research methods to minimise the cost of carrying out a winter road maintenance action by finding the near optimal or if possible optimal solution and still deliver the required service level. The thesis delivers two main things: It first delivers a framework to support winter road maintenance decision making after an alert of an action is received and secondly an algorithm for the route that minimises the cost of maintenance by providing the route that minimises the travel distance of the ploughing/sanding vehicle from its source depot and back to the depot after completing a maintenance action assuming that the vehicle and material (fuel and sand) are in the same depot. The routes with minimum travel distance will, therefore, be that route that will reduce the labour time and in turn the labour cost, reduce the fuel consumption and the maintenance of the equipment due to reduced usage. The project uses a vehicle routing problem which is a generalised travelling Salesman as the optimisation technique to determine the optimal solution for the allocation of resources for carrying out a maintenance action to facilitate efficient utilisation of the available resources. This is with the help of a commercial optimisation software and support tools namely ArcGIS. To come up with the algorithm, the first step was a digital representation of the vehicle road network in Luleå for network analysis after which the bus stops were imported from google earth into the network. A two-stage optimisation was then carried out: first was a model for route optimisation based on the road network in ArcGIS with the objective function to minimise the travel distance and constraints based on the available resources. The results of ii the model were then exported into excel for the second optimisation for the optimal cost of maintenance done through a developed excel algorithm. The total cost of maintenance comprised direct and indirect cost. The direct cost consisted of the cost of fuel, the cost of personnel and the cost of hiring vehicles while the indirect cost results from the penalty fee charged for sanding and ploughing a bus stop after the threshold time given to a maintenance contractor by the municipality. Any bus stop that is ploughed after the threshold attracts a penalty per hour of the exceeded time. Six penalty threshold times were considered i.e. 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 minutes and a single parameter deterministic sensitivity analysis was carried out for each cost parameters to determine the sensitivity of the total maintenance cost. The more relaxed penalty thresholds were found to be less sensitive to the direct cost and the total maintenance cost compared to the more sensitive ones. When the penalty threshold is relaxed, the optimal maintenance cost reduces, and the required number of vehicles reduces. The cost of vehicle hire was found to be more sensitive than the other costs. The results of this project can help the maintenance contractor in developing a work schedule for the maintenance personnel and improve vehicle fleet management. By modelling the worst scenario, a contractor can plan for the maximum number of vehicles required and consequently the personnel required. With the optimal travel route for each vehicle and the total maintenance cost determined, maintenance contractors can determine the sustainability and profitability of their business and be able to negotiate for a better and more sustainable agreement (Contract) or for the relaxation of the penalty threshold time if it does not affect the service level required i.e. the quality and safety requirements. The approach used in this project can also be used for other winter road maintenance problems.

Para expedir uma outorga de direito de uso da água, é necessário que técnicos do órgão responsável verifiquem se existe capacidade do corpo hídrico de atender a demanda solicitada (captação ou lançamento), considerando os demais usos já existentes e a hidrologia local. Em muitos casos, no Brasil e em outros países, as análises e os cálculos necessários para esta verificação ainda são feitos de forma manual, utilizando mapas em papel e planilhas de cálculo não integradas a Sistemas de Informação Geográfica. Este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia baseada na integração de SIG e modelos hidrológicos para a análise de pedidos de outorga de uso da água. A metodologia envolve 1) a utilização de SIG para pré-processamento de dados visando a aplicação de um modelo hidrológico chuva-vazão; 2) a aplicação do modelo chuva-vazão para gerar estimativas da vazão de referência adotada como disponibilidade hídrica em cada trecho de rio em que é dividida a bacia; 3) a transferência dos resultados do modelo hidrológico de volta ao SIG; e 4) a aplicação de um Sistema de Suporte a Decisão no qual cálculos simples de balanço hídrico são realizados internamente em um SIG. É apresentado um teste da metodologia na bacia do rio dos Sinos, no Rio Grande do Sul, região na qual há um comprometimento elevado da disponibilidade hídrica de referência. Os resultados no estudo de caso mostraram que é possível aprimorar a metodologia de análise de outorga ao integrar SIG e modelagem hidrológica. / In order to grant water rights to its user, it is necessary that technicians from the institution in charge verify if there is indeed the capability from the water body to overtake the requested demands (withdrawal or effluent disposal), considering other existing uses and local hydrology. In many cases in Brazil and other countries, the required analyses are still largely made by hand, using paper maps and spreadsheets not integrated to Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This work presents a methodology based on the integration of GIS and hydrological models for analyzing and granting water rights requests. This methodology implies: 1) the use of GIS for data pre-processing and by means of using an hydrological rainfall-runoff model; 2) the application of this rainfall-runoff model to estimate the water discharge availability that can be used as a reference for every reach of the river in which the basin is divided; 3) the transfer of the hydrological model results back to the GIS; and 4) the application of a Decision Support System in which simple calculations of water balance are done entirely in GIS environment. The presented methodology was applied to the case of the Rio dos Sinos basin, in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, a region where water demands exceed availability. Results of this case study showed that it is possible to improve the methodology used to analyze the granting of water rights when GIS and hydrological models are integrated.

O presente trabalho apresenta, primeiramente, o desenvolvimento e aplicação de uma Ferramenta de Apoio à Decisão (FAD), seguindo os conceitos de Sistemas de Informação (SI), para facilitar o acesso e visualização de informações técnicas estratégicas, e que possa compor um Sistema de Apoio à Decisão (SAD) que englobe o portfólio de informações necessárias para o planejamento da priorização de obras de investimento e expansão das redes de distribuição de energia. A FAD proposta realiza o tratamento de um grupo de dados relativos a incidência de interrupções de energia da rede de distribuição de uma concessionária do setor elétrico, de forma a disponibilizar as informações depuradas para auxílio na tomada assertiva de decisão para aplicação de recursos para execução de ações de manutenção em rede de distribuição. Em seguida, exibe a inclusão de uma função de análise, no aplicativo desenvolvido como Ferramenta de Apoio à Decisão (FAD), baseada na priorização multicriterial AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). A aplicação do método AHP indica as estações avançadas da concessionária que possuem prioridade para a aplicação de recursos que visam à execução de ações de manutenção em rede de distribuição para a melhoria nos indicadores de continuidades do fornecimento de energia. / This paper first introduces the development and application of a Decision Support Tool (FAD), following the concepts of Information Systems (IS), to facilitate the availability and visualization of strategic techniques information, and can compose a Decision Support System (DSS) that encompasses the entire portfolio of information needed for planning the prioritization of investment works and expansion of power distribution networks. The proposed FAD performs the treatment of a group of data on the incidence of power outages in the distribution of the electric utility industry network in order to provide information to aid in purified assertive decision making for application of resources for execution maintenance actions in the distribution network. Then displays the inclusion of an analysis function, the application developed as a Tool for Decision Support (FAD), multicriteria prioritization based on AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). The application of AHP method indicates the advanced utility stations that have priority for use of funds aimed at the implementation of maintenance actions in the distribution network to improve the indicators of continuity of power supply.

Many concrete problems may be cast in a multi-objective optimisation framework. The redundancy of existing methods for solving multi-objective programming problems susceptible to inconsistencies, coupled with the necessity for making in- herent assumptions before using a given method, make it hard for a nonspecialist to choose a method that ¯ts the situation at hand well. Moreover, using a method blindly, as suggested by the hammer principle (when you only have a hammer, you want everything in your hand to be a nail) is an awkward approach at best and a caricatural one at worst. This brings challenges to the design, development, implementation and deployment of a Decision Support System able to choose a method that is appropriate for a given problem and to apply the chosen method to solve the problem under consideration. The choice of method should be made according to the structure of the problem and the decision maker's opinion. The aim here is to embed a sample of methods representing the main multi-objective programming techniques and to help the decision maker find the most appropriate method for his problem. / Decisions Sciences / M. Sc. (Operations Research )

The dissertation thesis is focused on regional brands. The main objective was to create a general model of regional brand introduction and its further spread. A perspective of the business entity is taken. The model was then applied to the South Bohemia region of Czech Republic. A decision support system was designed from this application to help the entrepreneurs to implement the most effective regional brand for them. The thesis also defines the basic terminology associated with regional brands. The conclusion formulated recommendations on the further development of the model, respectively, other application of the model and further researches.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:00:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissLMM.pdf: 1919944 bytes, checksum: 108acfc4b2de1a03a59e073772ecb8cc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-08-12 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / The amount of waste generated by human activities associated with the decrease of appropriate final disposal sites have been presented as one of the great challenges to be faced by local administrations as well as by waste generating communities. Nowadays, household solid waste management is analyzed according to Descartes and Newton models, which are characterized by the separation and analysis of a system through its parts, resulting in isolated and narrow sighted decisions. Aspects such as the lack of technical training and financial resources contribute to this ongoing scenario. Considering the exposed problem this work aims to develop a decision support system to support the managers in the evaluation household solid waste management scenarios. The method consisted in defining and delimiting the work field of decision support system, followed by the construction of a conceptual model based on the acquired knowledge. The model was then translated in action screens and decision workflows, which were programmed in Delphi 6.0. The Extreme Programming (XP) methodology was applied, meaning that programmer and cognitive agent act together in the code of the system. Finally, the validation of the SIMGERE software in São Carlos (São Paulo State) was made in two moments - first on program s usability, in other words, if the system is friendly and easy understanding by user for treating of a new environment for him and; second on the coherence of the results obtained by the simulation of the municipal household solid waste management. For São Carlos case study, the landfill lifetime projection, nearly 2 years, was coherent with the expected. However, the economical simulation needs to be revised in order to better reflect the current management model. / A quantidade de resíduos gerada pela atividade humana aliada a diminuição de locais adequados para a disposição final têm se apresentado como um dos grandes desafios a serem enfrentados não só pelas administrações municipais como também por toda a comunidade geradora de resíduos. Atualmente a gestão dos resíduos sólidos domiciliares é tratada segundo o modelo reducionista de Descartes e Newton, caracterizada pela separação e análise de partes do sistema, resultando em tomadas de decisão isoladas e pontuais. Aspectos, como a carência de capacitação técnica e de recursos financeiros, contribuem para a continuidade deste cenário. Ciente desta problemática e incorporando alguns princípios do pensamento sistêmico, este trabalho tem como objetivo desenvolver um sistema de apoio à decisão na perspectiva de auxiliar os gestores na avaliação de cenários de gestão integrada de resíduos sólidos domiciliares. O método consistiu, primeiramente, em definir e delimitar o campo de trabalho do sistema de apoio à decisão seguindo-se para a construção do modelo conceitual com base no conhecimento adquirido na literatura pertinente, para depois traduzi-lo em telas de ação e fluxogramas de decisão, atividade imprescindível para a próxima etapa. Terminado estes procedimentos iniciou-se a codificação do modelo em linguagem de programação (Delphi 6.0). Esta etapa foi realizada aplicando a metodologia Extreme Programming (XP) em que o programador e o agente cognitivo atuam juntos na codificação do sistema. Por fim, a aplicação em São Carlos (SP) possibilitou verificar a validação do software SIMGERE em dois momentos primeiro com relação à usabilidade do programa, ou seja, se o sistema é amigável e de fácil compreensão para o usuário por se tratar de um ambiente novo para ele e, segundo com relação à coerência dos resultados obtidos para a gestão dos resíduos sólidos domiciliares do município. Concluiu-se que, para o caso de São Carlos (SP) a projeção da vida útil do aterro sanitário, estimada em aproximadamente mais 2 anos, foi coerente com o esperado, porém a simulação econômica precisa ser revisada de forma a refletir corretamente o modelo de gestão atualmente empregado.

In this thesis, we develop a decision support system for the amusement park Skara Sommarland. The aim is to predict how many visitors will come to the park in order to help the management allocate the correct amount of personnel on any given day. In order to achieve this, the widely used CRoss-Industry Standard for Data Mining framework was applied to finally build a multiple linear regression (MLR) function and an artificial neural network (ANN) model. The data used to develop the models were Skara Sommarland’s historical business data and historical weather data for the surrounding area. Additionally, a fully functional web application was built which allowed the management at Skara Sommarland to use the predictions in their daily operations. The ANN outperformed the MLR and managed to achieve about 80% accuracy in predicting the number of visitors, reaching the initial data mining goal set by the project group. The conclusion formed by this thesis is that an ANN can be used to predict the number of visitors to an amusement park similar to Skara Sommarland. The final IT artifact produced can realistically help improve an amusement park’s operations by avoiding over- and under-staffing.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissEJF.pdf: 2383698 bytes, checksum: f6fd745457de5bfdeefafca95cb3a484 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-12-13 / Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais / The family farmers play an important role in the Brazilian agricultural production. However, even though they occupy a prominent position in the agricultural production in Brazil, there are not management techniques specifically suitable to family farmers. Focusing on commercialization and vertical coordination, this dissertation has as main objective the development of management prescriptions related to procurement and marketing activities undertaken by family farmers. Computational simulation, based on System Dynamics methodology, was the main instrument to support procurement and marketing decisions. Interviews with thirty three vegetables family farmers and five of their main suppliers, all located in the region of São Carlos SP, provided the real data for the design of the computational model. The empirical research revealed that family farmers do not plan procurement and marketing appropriately, although they manage to compete with non-family production. The use of governance structures based on trust seems to be the main cause of their survival and success. The simulation based on System Dynamics helped the design of models that represent and help the decision making related the procurement and marketing by family farmers. / A agricultura familiar desempenha um papel importante na produção agropecuária brasileira. No entanto, mesmo ocupando uma posição de destaque na produção agrícola do país, o agricultor familiar não desfruta de ferramentas de gestão adaptadas as suas particularidades, as quais poderiam contribuir para aumentar a eficiência da atividade agrícola. Interessado na gestão da comercialização, este trabalho tem como principal objetivo desenvolver uma ferramenta de gestão capaz de auxiliar o produtor familiar a tomar decisão relacionadas a compra de insumos e venda de produtos. A metodologia de pesquisa adotada foi a simulação computacional, baseada na metodologia de System Dynamics, sendo que o procedimento adotado para a coleta dos dados foi o estudo de caso. Na investigação empírica foram entrevistados trinta e três produtores familiares de hortaliças e cinco de seus principais fornecedores, todos localizados no município de São Carlos SP. Constatou-se que os produtores familiares não planejam adequadamente a compra de insumos e a venda de seus produtos, no entanto, mesmo utilizando práticas gerencias inadequadas eles conseguem sobreviver na atividade, graças, sobretudo, a estrutura de governança baseada em relações de confiança utilizada para coordenar suas transações com fornecedores e clientes. A simulação baseada na metodologia de System Dynamics se mostrou eficiente na construção de modelos que representam e ajudam a resolver as situações-problema relacionadas a atividade agrícola familiar.

Thesis (MTech (Information Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2012. / The wine industry is complex hence the farmers and emerging farmers who operate in it are faced with environmental, social and economic constraints. Even though various issues have been pointed out to be contributing to the slow uptake of ICT by emerging farmers (Cox, 1995), McCartney (2007) however pointed out that DSSs can enhance gains in economic, social and environmental benefits. This study investigates how wine farmers use ICTs to support decision making in order to assist emerging farmers adopt and use the ICTs for decision making. Decision making is crucial; it is one of the most important tasks of management in running a successful business (Dralega, 2007). Emerging farmers have to operate in a complex environment and ICT use can lead to the effective use of information to support decision making in the industry. Experienced farmers use ICT tools to support decision making and use information to make informed decisions in their operations. Emerging farmers are at a distinct disadvantage as they have no previous knowledge of farming and have to find their way on a day to day basis. This has the potential of reducing profitability and sustainability of the emerging farmers who have entered the industry. The main research question is: "how can emerging farmers utilise ICT for decision making in the wine industry in the Breede River Valley region in the Western Cape?" Interviews were done to gather primary data. In this case it is information about the technological and information needs of farmers which might help them in decision making. The literature is reviewed in this study to gather secondary data. The study took an inductive approach and the epistemological stance in this study is interpretivism. The case study was used as strategy for the study. The interviewees emphasised the importance of ICTs in their decision making; they mentioned that without the use of ICTs in decision their businesses will crumble. In order to prosper in their business, emerging farmers need to invest in ICTs as this will also assist in improving livelihoods of the farmers and their workers.

O presente trabalho apresenta, primeiramente, o desenvolvimento e aplicação de uma Ferramenta de Apoio à Decisão (FAD), seguindo os conceitos de Sistemas de Informação (SI), para facilitar o acesso e visualização de informações técnicas estratégicas, e que possa compor um Sistema de Apoio à Decisão (SAD) que englobe o portfólio de informações necessárias para o planejamento da priorização de obras de investimento e expansão das redes de distribuição de energia. A FAD proposta realiza o tratamento de um grupo de dados relativos a incidência de interrupções de energia da rede de distribuição de uma concessionária do setor elétrico, de forma a disponibilizar as informações depuradas para auxílio na tomada assertiva de decisão para aplicação de recursos para execução de ações de manutenção em rede de distribuição. Em seguida, exibe a inclusão de uma função de análise, no aplicativo desenvolvido como Ferramenta de Apoio à Decisão (FAD), baseada na priorização multicriterial AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). A aplicação do método AHP indica as estações avançadas da concessionária que possuem prioridade para a aplicação de recursos que visam à execução de ações de manutenção em rede de distribuição para a melhoria nos indicadores de continuidades do fornecimento de energia. / This paper first introduces the development and application of a Decision Support Tool (FAD), following the concepts of Information Systems (IS), to facilitate the availability and visualization of strategic techniques information, and can compose a Decision Support System (DSS) that encompasses the entire portfolio of information needed for planning the prioritization of investment works and expansion of power distribution networks. The proposed FAD performs the treatment of a group of data on the incidence of power outages in the distribution of the electric utility industry network in order to provide information to aid in purified assertive decision making for application of resources for execution maintenance actions in the distribution network. Then displays the inclusion of an analysis function, the application developed as a Tool for Decision Support (FAD), multicriteria prioritization based on AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). The application of AHP method indicates the advanced utility stations that have priority for use of funds aimed at the implementation of maintenance actions in the distribution network to improve the indicators of continuity of power supply.