HEC Montréal

About: HEC Montréal is a education organization based out in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Vehicle routing problem & Corporate governance. The organization has 1221 authors who have published 5708 publications receiving 196862 citations. The organization is also known as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montreal & HEC Montreal.

The fleet size and mix pollution-routing problem

Abstract: This paper introduces the fleet size and mix pollution-routing problem which extends the pollution-routing problem by considering a heterogeneous vehicle fleet. The main objective is to minimize the sum of vehicle fixed costs and routing cost, where the latter can be defined with respect to the cost of fuel and CO emissions, and driver cost. Solving this problem poses several methodological challenges. To this end, we have developed a powerful metaheuristic which was successfully applied to a large pool of realistic benchmark instances. Several analyses were conducted to shed light on the trade-offs between various performance indicators, including capacity utilization, fuel and emissions and costs pertaining to vehicle acquisition, fuel consumption and drivers. The analyses also quantify the benefits of using a heterogeneous fleet over a homogeneous one. Full text available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261514001623

A framework for information technology outsourcing risk management

Abstract: This paper takes stock from several studies on Information Technology outsourcing risk. A definition of risk is offered, and an illustration from five case studies is used to show how risk can be managed. Results show that an active risk management approach can reduce risk exposure substantially while enabling the organizations to still reap the benefits associated with outsourcing.

Dynamic transportation of patients in hospitals

Abstract: This study analyzes and solves a patient transportation problem arising in large hospitals. The aim is to provide an efficient and timely transport service to patients between several locations in a hospital campus. Transportation requests arrive in a dynamic fashion and the solution methodology must therefore be capable of quickly inserting new requests in the current vehicle routes. Contrary to standard dial-a-ride problems, the problem under study includes several complicating constraints which are specific to a hospital context. The study provides a detailed description of the problem and proposes a two-phase heuristic procedure capable of handling its many features. In the first phase a simple insertion scheme is used to generate a feasible solution, which is improved in the second phase with a tabu search algorithm. The heuristic procedure was extensively tested on real data provided by a German hospital. Results show that the algorithm is capable of handling the dynamic aspect of the problem and of providing high-quality solutions. In particular, it succeeded in reducing waiting times for patients while using fewer vehicles.