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Finding efficient disaster recovery center location-allocation-routing (DRCLAR) network schemes play a vital role in the disaster recovery logistics network (DRLN) design. The purpose of this paper is to propose and demonstrate how to design efficient DRCLAR network schemes under the risk of facility disruptions as a part of the disaster relief activities.

A goal programming (GP) model is formulated to consider four performance measures simultaneously for the DRCLAR design. The cross-evaluation based-super efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach is applied to better evaluate the DRCLAR network schemes generated by solving the GP model so that more efficient network schemes can be identified.

The proposed approach identifies more efficient DRCLAR network schemes consistently among various network schemes generated by GP. We find that combining these two methods compensates for each method's weaknesses and enhances the discriminating power of the DEA method for effectively identifying and ranking the network schemes.

This study presents how to generate balanced DRCLAR network schemes and how to evaluate various network schemes for identifying efficient ones. The proposed procedure of developing and evaluating them could be extended for designing some disaster recovery/relief supply chain systems with conflicting performance measures.

Emergency relief supply chain (ERSC) design is an important strategic decision that significantly affects the overall performance of emergency management activities. The performance of an ERSC can be measured by several performance measures some of which may conflict with each other. The purpose of this paper is to propose an ERSC design framework by simultaneously taking total logistics cost (TLC), risk level, and amount of demands covered in an ERSC into consideration.

The study considers TLC of an ERSC as the sum of logistics cost from distribution warehouses (DWHs) to Break of Bulbs (BOBs) and from BOBs to affected neighborhoods. The risk level of an ERSC is measured by estimating the expected number of disrupted relief items (EDI) distributed from DWHs through BOBs to neighborhoods. The covered demand (CDM) is defined as total populations that are supported in case of an emergency, the populations within the maximal coverage distance (MCD) from relief facilities. Based on these performance measures, the authors formulate a Goal Programming (GP) model to distribute emergency relief items to affected locations. Ideal values of these performance measures are decided, and the GP model seeks to minimize the weighted sum of the percentage deviations of those performance measures from the ideal values. The relationships among performance measures have been thoroughly analyzed through detailed trade-off studies under two realistic case studies by changing weights of each performance measure.

Three performance measures are interdependent over specific values of weights. TLC and EDI have a trade-off relationship when the weight on each measure increases. TLC and CDM also have a trade-off relationship when the weight on EDI increases. However, this relationship becomes less apparent when the MCD increases. EDI and CDM also have the same trade-off relationship when the weight on TLC changes. Therefore, decision makers should thoroughly analyze these trade-off relationships when they design ERSCs. Overall, the study identified that an ERSC with higher MCD outperforms one with lower MCD in terms of TLC, EDI, and CDM.

The study presents a design framework to generate more balanced ERSCs by simultaneously taking three conflicting performance measures into consideration, and demonstrated the feasibility of the framework through realistic case studies. The trade-off analysis provides useful insights and theoretical knowledge to researchers and practitioners in the discipline of emergency logistics management. The results from this study are expected to contribute to the development of more balanced ERSCs.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework and prototype software to use IDEF3 descriptions as a knowledge base from which a queuing network (QN) analysis is performed to compute system performance measures as part of quick response manufacturing. This intends to help domain experts obtain informative quantitative performance measures such as resource utilization, waiting time, and cycle time without relying on a time consuming simulation approach.

A general open queuing network is used to extract the related resource information from the process knowledge captured by IDEF3 method. The relational database is used to integrate the open QN and IDEF3, which also improves the knowledge reusability. In addition, the performance of the open queuing network analyzer (QNA) is compared to the simulation through case studies.

The domain experts usually do not own much technical modeling knowledge. However, through this integration, it is found that they could obtain several meaningful system performance measures without simulation. They could also perform the diverse “what if” scenario analyses with this prototype without difficulties. It is another finding that the system performance measures generated by the open QNA are reasonably close to the values obtained from simulation, articularly when the system utilization is low.

The open QN analysis used in this integration is not as generic as the simulation approach in terms of the modeling scope and capability. Hence, this integration supports only the exclusive OR (XOR) out of three junctions in IDEF3 grammars.

Some system analysis problems do not require a complex simulation modeling approach. Domain experts need a modeling tool to quickly obtain some system dynamics and insights. This integration framework suffices those requirements.

This paper describes the first attempt to generate informative system performance measures from the IDEF3 model using the open QN. It also offers practical help to the domain experts working in the system analysis area.

The accurate estimation of equipment utilization is very important in capital‐intensive industry since the identification and analysis of hidden time losses are initiated from these estimates. In this paper, a new loss classification scheme for computing the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is presented for capital‐intensive industry. Based on the presented loss classification scheme, a new interpretation for OEE including state analysis, relative loss analysis, lost unit analysis and product unit analysis is attempted. Presents a methodology for constructing a data collection system and developing the total productivity improvement visibility system to implement the proposed OEE and related analyses.

This study examines the limitations of the practical application of letter of credit transactions requiring an on-board bill of lading under the FCA and presents opinions on the practical use of FCA-ruled bills of lading for letter of credit transactions.

It is very significant that the Incoterms^Ⓡ2020 FCA rules have added new content regarding the optional description of the on-board bill of lading. However, even if the seller has received the on-board bill of lading, there is a limitation in that the bank may not judge the presented documents as a consistent presentation for payment. Identifying these limitations and suggesting solutions are very important for future international commerce transactions. This study is conducted in the following order. First, we review the UCP regulations that banks apply to confirm the consistency of transportation documents in letter of credit transactions. Second, we confirm the limitations in applying the selective description of the on-board bill of lading newly established in the FCA rules proposed by the ICC to letter of credit transactions. Lastly, necessary opinions are presented on how the buying and selling parties can properly utilize the Incoterms in letter of credit transactions.

The establishment of the ICC’s Incoterms 2020 FCA rule’s on-board bill of lading option regulation is intended to resolve merchants’ inconvenience caused by the document screening standards of banks that ignore changes in the trade environment such as the emergence of containers and maintain traditional ship trading practices. It can be interpreted. However, there are still problems with the presentation of on-board bills of lading under FCA rules, and there are also problems with practices between merchants and banks. Existing prior research is limited to dealing with the problems of using FOB rules in container transportation and the limitations of the onboard bill of lading option provisions of FCA rules. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has also affected trade, ushering in the digital era. Trade platforms developed with new technologies are either under development or being prepared for commercialization.

This study reaffirmed the main implications covered in previous studies and proposed the use of multimodal transport documents rather than bills of lading as an alternative to problems that may arise in letter of credit transactions that require on-board bills of lading under FCA rules. Above all, it presented opinions on changes in banks’ practices that require on-board bills of lading in letter of credit transactions, which are inconsistent with the mainstream container-based intermodal transportation.

We provide a new characterization of the equality of two positive-definite matrices A and B, and we use this to propose several new computationally convenient statistical tests for the equality of two unknown positive-definite matrices. Our primary focus is on testing the information matrix equality (e.g. White, 1982, 1994). We characterize the asymptotic behavior of our new trace-determinant information matrix test statistics under the null and the alternative and investigate their finite-sample performance for a variety of models: linear regression, exponential duration, probit, and Tobit. The parametric bootstrap suggested by Horowitz (1994) delivers critical values that provide admirable level behavior, even in samples as small as n = 50. Our new tests often have better power than the parametric-bootstrap version of the traditional IMT; when they do not, they nevertheless perform respectably.