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Presentation

Industrial Engineering and Management

The centre is an international reference in business analytics through decision support systems for service and operations management, contributing also in service design, performance assessment and asset management.

Our core areas of application include Mobility/Transports, Retail/Industry and Healthcare, also with significant contributions in the Energy Sector and a strengthened collaboration with the Centre for Power and Energy Systems.

In the latest years, CEGI substantially contribute to Industry 4.0 initiatives (improving scheduling rules based on the additional information available in manufacturing systems).

Latest News
Systems Engineering and Management

Test Bed 5G: companies are already testing their solutions at INESC TEC

The first pilot-projects to demonstrate 5G solutions aimed at the manufacturing industry have already started at INESC TEC Industry and Innovation Laboratory (iiLab). Companies will be able to test their solutions and develop products and services that resort to the new generation network. The pilots are part of the Test Bed 5G project, led by NOS – in partnership with Sonae MC and Wells, and with INESC TEC participation.

22nd February 2024

INESC TEC research selected for special issue of international journal

The research work The pallet loading problem: a review of solution methods and computational experiments, by Elsa Silva and José Fernando Oliveira, researchers at INESC TEC, and Gerhard Wäscher, professor at Otto-von-Guericke University, in Magdeburg (Germany), was one of 30 papers selected to feature in the edition marking the 30th anniversary of the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR) journal.

28th March 2023

INESC TEC joins project to place Portugal at the forefront of the insect bioindustry

The InsectERA is a mobilising agenda that features close to 40 national entities. Funded within the PRR – Recovery and Resilience Plan, this agenda aims to develop, industrialise, and commercialise nutritional solutions for people, animals, and plants, while fostering opportunities for the cosmetics and bioplastics industries, as well as for the biomedicines sector. It focuses on the creation of organic waste recovery solutions, contributing to the sustainability of value chains.

23rd March 2023

INESC TEC research selected to feature on top journal in the field of Health

The article Operations Research in Healthcare: a survey, by Ana Viana, a researcher at INESC TEC, was one of the 30 articles selected for the 30th anniversary issue of International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR); the researcher’s work identifies the main contributions related to the optimisation of health problems between the late 1990s and 2010. The work was acknowledged as one of the most influential articles in the field

31st January 2023

Technology that reduces treatment time for cancer patients wins digital innovation award

The Gentil – Text Mining project won the Portugal Digital Awards in the Best Future of Work Project category, which acknowledges the best initiative related to employees' productivity and effectiveness.

06th January 2022

098

Featured Projects

PEER

THE HYPER EXPERT COLLABORATIVE AI ASSISTANT

2023-2027

TIIM_TS

Transportes Integrados Inter-Municipais no Tâmega e Sousa

2023-2023

PFAI4_4eD

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4 - 4a edição

2023-2023

CIBELE

Sustainability in Cutting and Packing Problems: multi-objective optimization of raw material utilization

2023-2024

TacitRouting

Tacit knowledge in route planning

2023-2024

eduBEST

Education Systems Benchmarking with Frontier Techniques

2023-2026

SMARTgNOSTICS

Global Testing & Diagnostics Solutions for antimicrobial resistances

2023-2025

InsectERA

A ERA da indústria dos insetos

2023-2025

MOSH

Modelling shared mobility: advanced demand modelling and learning for the sustainable shared mobility of the future

2023-2024

AgendaTransform

Agenda para a transformação digital do setor florestal para uma economia resiliente e hipocarbónica

2022-2025

Produtech_R3

Agenda Mobilizadora da Fileira das Tecnologias de Produção para a Reindustrialização

2022-2025

PFAI4_3ed

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4 - 3a edição

2022-2022

FORM_I40

Formação Indústria 4.0

2022-2022

BestOrder3

Gestão de inventário de farmácias comunitárias

2022-2023

BeFresh

On incorporating consumer behaviour into the supply chain planning of fresh products

2022-2024

DRIVEN

Decision Rules made Interpretable, Verifiable and Effective for governing Farfetch Network

2021-2022

FIRE_RES

Innovative Technologies and Socio-Ecological-Economic Solutions for FIRE RESilient Territories in Europe

2021-2025

SolIM62010

Intelligent marketing solutions

2021-2022

BEST_ORDER_II

Gestão de inventário nas farmácias portuguesas - Fase II

2021-2022

EUSCORES

EUropean - Scalable and Complementary Offshore Renewable Energy Sources

2021-2025

AI4PV

Artificial Intelligence for Operation and Maintenance of PV Plants

2021-2023

DIGITALCER

Digital Energy Platform for Energy Communities

2021-2023

SmartPV

Desenvolvimento de plataforma de gestão de ativos PV através de prevenção inteligente de falhas

2021-2023

TRUSTAI

Transparent, Reliable and Unbiased Smart Tool for AI

2020-2025

BestOrder

Gestão de inventário nas farmácias portuguesas

2020-2021

PFAI4.0

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4.0

2020-2021

FPP2

Fleet Planning and Pricing

2020-2020

PLASMA 4 COVID

Agilização da colheita de plasma convalescente

2020-2021

Replant

Implantação de estratégias colaborativas para a gestão integrada da floresta e do fogo

2020-2023

FPP

Fleet Planning and Pricing

2020-2020

MINE4HEALTH

Text mining e clinical decision-making

2020-2021

WINDEXT

Advanced maintenance, lifetime extension and repowering of wind farms supported by advanced digital tools

2020-2022

CrossLOG

AUTOMATIC MIXED-PALLETIZING FOR CROSS-DOCKING LOGISTICS CENTERS

2019-2023

POCITYF

A POsitive Energy CITY Transformation Framework

2019-2024

XFLEX_HIDRO

Hydropower Extending Power System Flexibility

2019-2024

T4CDTKC

Training 4 Cotec, Digital Transformation Knowledge Challenge - Elaboração de Programa de Formação “CONHECER E COMPREENDER O DESAFIO DAS TECNOLOGIAS DE TRANSFORMAÇÃO DIGITAL”

2019-2021

ENCKEP

European Network for Collaboration on Kidney Exchange Programmes

2019-2021

OCP_STOCK

Gestão de inventário nas farmácias portuguesas

2019-2020

ValProduct

Estudo sobre o impacto das validades dos produtos nos contratos

2019-2019

PortoAmbiente

ESTUDO SOBRE A RECOLHA SELETIVA DE RESÍDUOS URBANOS COMERCIAIS

2019-2020

RM20

Car Rental Revenue Management 2.0

2019-2020

FIN-TECH

A FINancial supervision and TECHnology compliance training programme

2019-2021

VAR

Avaliação de risco das válvulas de rede primária : vida útil restante e condições de operação

2019-2019

OpenInnoTrain

Research Translation and Applied Knowledge Exchange in Practice through University-Industry-Cooperation

2019-2024

DoubleChain

Supporting ubiquitous and fully decentralized supply chain operations through blockchain technology

2018-2020

LASTMILE

Rethinking last-mile delivery through crowdsourcing

2018-2022

SiuSMS

Smart (inter)urban shared mobility systems: integrating pricing and fleet management for a sustainable mobility planning future

2018-2022

DeltaC&P

Uncertainty in cutting and packing problems: robust planning and optimized replanning in manufacturing and transportation

2018-2022

opti-MOVES

Quality management of intermodal public transport services: diagnosis and optimization

2018-2022

KnowlogisII

Ferramenta de apoio à logística de farmácias hospitalares

2018-2020

ASAP

Airport slot allocation processes: advances in current guidelines and practices

2018-2022

BEEF

Estudo da gestão de produção, inventário e compras através de métodos analíticos

2018-2019

Tec-FEL

Logistics 4.0: Technologies for flexible and eco-efficient logistics

2018-2021

HIP

Heath Index for Power Transformers

2018-2018

MANU-SQUARE

MANUfacturing ecoSystem of QUAlified Resources Exchange

2018-2021

HEAD

Heath index for assets of the distribuition network

2018-2022

WinePallet

Otimização do sistema de paletização

2017-2017

UPGASII

Gestão de ativos na rede de distribuição de gás (Fase II)

2017-2018

ANPCARE

Os cuidados de enfermagem especializados como resposta à evolução das necessidades em cuidados de saúde

2017-2017

KnowLOGIS

KnowLOGIS - Expertise in Healthcare Logistics

2017-2019

PricingSdL

Sistema de Apoio à Decisão para a definição de preços

2017-2017

InteGrid

Demonstration of INTElligent grid technologies for renewables INTEgration and INTEractive consumer participation enabling INTEroperable market solutions and INTErconnected stakeholders

2017-2020

Path

Políticas de manutenção preditiva apoiadas na fiabilidade de transformadores

2017-2017

SIMOPT

Simulação e Optimização na Distribuição Alimentar

2017-2017

DM4Manufacturing

Aligning Manufacturing Decision Making with Advanced Manufacturing Technologies

2016-2021

Atena

Saber para intervir: observatório para a educação

2016-2019

EasyFlow

Collaborative and efficient logistics towards more sustainable forest suplly chain

2016-2019

HHRPLAN

Foresight and decision support tools for improved healthcare workforce planning and policy analysis

2016-2018

mKEP

mKEP - Models and optimisation algorithms for multicountry kidney exchange programs

2016-2019

CORAL-TOOLS

CORAL – Sustainable Ocean Exploitation: Tools and Sensors

2016-2018

LTP

Consultoria em data minning e otimização em diferentes problemas abordados pela LTP

2016-2017

UpGas

Gestão de ativos na rede de distribuição de gás

2015-2016

iMAN

iMAN - Intelligence for advanced Manufacturing systems

2015-2019

SMILES

SMILES - Smart, Mobile, Intelligent and Large scale Sensing and analytics

2015-2019

HIDRO

Desenvolvimento de um modelo integrado de engenharia de fiabilidade

2015-2016

RosaEvolution

Melhoria de eficiência do Sistema Rosa Evolution com o objetivo de reduzir as não conformidades provocadas pelo TCA

2015-2016

BestWare

Dimensionamento de armazéns integrados em lojas de retalho alimentar

2015-2017

ShortPath

Análise de processos de distribuição com vista à formulação de propostas de melhoria ao processo de distribuição atual

2015-2016

Rent-a-Car-Pricing

Conceção e implementação de um Sistema de Apoio às Decisões de Pricing

2015-2015

UPGRID

Real proven solutions to enable active demand and distributed generation flexible integration, through a fully controllable LOW Voltage and medium voltage distribution grid

2015-2017

ReliabilityEng2

Reliability Engineering for Wind Turbine Generators - Phase II

2014-2015

Supply_Chain

Melhoramento do desempenho da cadeia de fornecimento e na organização de recursos

2014-2016

ShortCut

Organização e localização dos produtos nas prateleiras e no mezanino do armazém principal

2014-2015

StorePacks

Definição de produtos StorePack, dos armazéns até às lojas

2014-2015

SuperStore

Replenishment System for on-line SuperStore

2014-2014

Mailing

Mailing optimisation: Quantitative Methods for Coupon Allocation

2014-2014

PromoStock

Retail Promotional Replenishment and Forecasting

2014-2014

WholeChain

Whole Chain: Quantitative Framework for Perishable Food Supply Chain Management

2014-2015

ReliabilityEng

Reliability Engineering for Wind Turbine Generators

2014-2014

PSS-DESIGN

Estudo e desenvolvimento de metodologias para sistemas e produtos e serviços no âmbito do projeto INTELLAB II

2014-2015

MEDSC

Supply chain of a pharmaceutical grocery

2014-2014

PTGlass

Tactical integrated production and distribution planning at glass container industry

2013-2014

SmartManufacturing

Smart Manufacturing and Logistics

2013-2015

SAGRH

Advanced System for Medical Human Resources Management

2012-2014

GESTAO_FLUXOS

Long-haul freight distribution optimisation

2012-2014

StableCargo

Cargo stability analysis in container transportation: a hybrid optimisation - heuristics framework

2012-2015

SADRH

Staff allocation and scheduling optimisation algorithms

2012-2014

KEP

New models to enhance kidney transplants

2011-2014

Team
Publications

CEGI Publications

View all Publications

2024

Heuristics for online three-dimensional packing problems and algorithm selection framework for semi-online with full look-ahead

Authors
Ali, S; Ramos, AG; Carravilla, MA; Oliveira, JF;

Publication
APPLIED SOFT COMPUTING

Abstract
In online three-dimensional packing problems (3D-PPs), unlike offline problems, items arrive sequentially and require immediate packing decisions without any information about the quantities and sizes of the items to come. Heuristic methods are of great importance in solving online problems to find good solutions in a reasonable amount of time. However, the literature on heuristics for online problems is sparse. As our first contribution, we developed a pool of heuristics applicable to online 3D-PPs with complementary performance on different sets of instances. Computational results showed that in terms of the number of used bins, in all problem instances, at least one of our heuristics had a better or equal performance compared to existing heuristics in the literature. The developed heuristics are also fully applicable to an intermediate class between offline and online problems, referred to in this paper as a specific type of semi-online with full look-ahead, which has several practical applications. In this class, as in offline problems, complete information about all items is known in advance (i.e., full look-ahead); however, due to time or space constraints, as in online problems, items should be packed immediately in the order of their arrival. As our second contribution, we presented an algorithm selection framework, building on developed heuristics and utilizing prior information about items in this specific class of problems. We used supervised machine learning techniques to find the relationship between the features of problem instances and the performance of heuristics and to build a prediction model. The results indicate an 88% accuracy in predicting (identifying) the most promising heuristic(s) for solving any new instance from this class of problems.

2024

Estimating Alighting Stops and Transfers from AFC Data: The Case Study of Porto

Authors
Hora, J; Ferreira, MC; Camanho, A; Galvão, T;

Publication
Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems

Abstract

2024

Synchronisation in vehicle routing: Classification schema, modelling framework and literature review

Authors
Soares, R; Marques, A; Amorim, P; Parragh, SN;

Publication
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH

Abstract
The practical relevance and challenging nature of the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) have motivated the Operations Research community to consider different practical requirements and problem variants throughout the years. However, businesses still face increasingly specific and complex transportation re-quirements that need to be tackled, one of them being synchronisation. No literature contextualises syn-chronisation among other types of problem aspects of the VRP, increasing ambiguity in the nomenclature used by the community. The contributions of this paper originate from a literature review and are three-fold. First, new conceptual and classification schemas are proposed to analyse literature and re-organise different interdependencies that arise in routing decisions. Secondly, a modelling framework is presented based on the proposed schemas. Finally, an extensive literature review identifies future research gaps and opportunities in the field of VRPs with synchronisation.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

2024

The drone-assisted vehicle routing problem with robot stations

Authors
Morim, A; Campuzano, G; Amorim, P; Mes, M; Lalla-Ruiz, E;

Publication
EXPERT SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATIONS

Abstract
Following the widespread interest of both the scientific community and companies in using autonomous vehicles to perform deliveries, we propose the 'Drone-Assisted Vehicle Routing Problem with Robot Stations' (VRPD-RS), a problem that combines two concepts studied in the autonomous vehicles literature: truck-drone tandems and robot stations. We model the VRPD-RS as a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) for two different objectives, the makespan and operational costs, and analyze the impact of adding trucks, drones, and robots to the delivery fleet. Given the computational complexity of the problem, we propose a General Variable Neighborhood Search (GVNS) metaheuristic to solve more realistic instances within reasonable computational times. Results show that, for small instances of 10 customers, where the solver obtains optimal solutions for almost all cases, the GVNS presents solutions with gaps of 0.7% to the solver for the makespan objective and gaps of 0.0% for the operational costs variant. For instances of up to 50 customers, the GVNS presents improvements of 21.5% for the makespan objective and 8.0% for the operational costs variant. Furthermore, we compare the GVNS with a Simulated Annealing (SA) metaheuristic, showing that the GVNS outperforms the SA for the whole set of instances and in more efficient computational times. Accordingly, the results highlight that including an additional drone in a truck-drone tandem increases delivery speed alongside a reduction in operational costs. Moreover, robot stations proved to be a useful delivery element as they were activated in almost every studied scenario.

2024

Learning efficient in-store picking strategies to reduce customer encounters in omnichannel retail

Authors
Neves-Moreira, F; Amorim, P;

Publication
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRODUCTION ECONOMICS

Abstract
Omnichannel retailers are reinventing stores to meet the growing demand of the online channel. Several retailers now use stores as supporting distribution centers to offer quicker Buy-Online-Pickup-In-Store (BOPS) and Ship-From-Store (SFS) services. They resort to in-store picking to serve online orders using existing assets. However, in-store picking operations require picker carts traveling through store aisles, competing for store space, and possibly harming the offline customer experience. To learn picking policies that acknowledge interactions between pickers and offline customers, we formalize a new problem called Dynamic In-store Picker Routing Problem (diPRP). This problem considers a picker that tries to pick online orders (seeking) while minimizing customer encounters (hiding) - preserving the offline customer experience. We model the problem as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and solve it using a hybrid solution approach comprising mathematical programming and reinforcement learning components. Computational experiments on synthetic instances suggest that the algorithm converges to efficient policies. We apply our solution approach in the context of a large European retailer to assess the proposed policies regarding the number of orders picked and customers encountered. The learned policies are also tested in six different retail settings, demonstrating the flexibility of the proposed approach. Our work suggests that retailers should be able to scale the in-store picking of online orders without jeopardizing the experience of offline customers. The policies learned using the proposed solution approach reduced the number of customer encounters by up to 50%, compared to policies solely focused on picking orders. Thus, to pursue omnichannel strategies that adequately trade-off operational efficiency and customer experience, retailers cannot rely on actual simplistic picking strategies, such as choosing the shortest possible route.

Facts & Figures

9Proceedings in indexed conferences

2020

19Senior Researchers

2016

56Researchers

2016