Research in the Sustainable Operations Management (SOM) Laboratory at the University of Kentucky focuses on optimization, scheduling and control in serial systems. Trade-offs among metrics, NP-completeness in flow shop scheduling, and variations in serial systems in real time are three fundamental challenges to SOM. These challenges generates high production cost and holding cost in manufacturing and healthcare systems, slowing down both material and value flows through the serial system. Integration of optimization, scheduling and control provides sustainable solutions to operations management in serial systems, improving not only the efficiency at operations levels from the engineering perspective, but also the effectiveness at management levels from the business perspective. The research group in the SOM Lab is filling the gap between theoretical research and industrial application. Currently, we are doing a project of Systematic Evaluation of Operating Room Scheduling across the Perioperative Process for UK HealthCare, which is funded by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Our research topics:
- Trade-off balancing for operating room (OR) scheduling
- Optimization for concurrent design in manufacturing and healthcare systems
- System robustness to variations in processing times and market demand
- Relaxing the impact of NP-completeness in flow shop scheduling on system optimization
Our research interests:
Operations Management, Operations Research, Production Scheduling and Control, Simulation and Optimization in Manufacturing and Healthcare Systems.
Open positions:
We sincerely encourage applications for a PhD program at Mechanical Engineering at UK, and join our team of SOM.
People
Principal Investigator: Dr. Wei (Mike) Li
Associate Professor
Research and Teaching Interests: Adaptive Production Scheduling and Control, Simulation and Optimization in Healthcare Systems, Operations Research, Operations Management, Manufacturing Systems
University of Kentucky, College of Engineering
Mechanical Engineering – ME
414J RMB
Lexington, KY 40506-0108
Phone: 859-257-4842
Fax: 859-257-3304
Email: wei.mike.li@uky.edu
Jingjing You
Tentative Thesis Title: Steady-State of Trade-off Balancing
Education
B.S.E. 2011, Biomedical Engineering, Tianjin Medical University, China.
Research interests
Optimization, Healthcare systems scheduling, Sustainable production, Flowshop scheduling.
Email: jingjing.you@uky.edu
Mian M.K Shah
Tentative Thesis Title: Research the importance of Control Systems in Sustainable Manufacturing
Education
B.S.E. 2002, Mechanical Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology Peshawar, Pak.
B.S.E. 2012, Technology Management, Morehead State University Morehead, KY
Research interests
Control Systems, Sustainable Manufacturing, The Internet of Things, Lean Manufacturing.
Email: mian.shah@uky.edu
Amin Abedini
Dissertation Title: Trade-off Balancing for Stable and Sustainable Operating Room Scheduling
Education
M.S.E. 2012, Mechanical Engineering, Urmia University, Iran.
B.S.E. 2010, Mechanical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran.
Research interests
Robust Optimization, Resource allocation, Operating room scheduling, Material processing, 3D printing for drug delivery.
Feidi Dang
Education
M.S.E. 2017, Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky, USA.
B.S.E. 2014, Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, China.
Thesis title: An efficient heuristic to balance trade-offs between utilization and patient flowtime in operating room management.
Research interests
Simulation, Optimization, Operation research, Flowshop scheduling
Vivek Reddy Gunna
Vivek joined Sustainable Operation Management (SOM) Lab in August 2015 pursuing his MSc.
Education
M.S.E. 2017, Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky, USA.
B.S.E. 2015, Mechanical Engineering, Jawaharlal Technological University Hyderabad, India.
Thesis title: Adaptive multi-objective operating room planning with stochastic demand ans case times.
Research Interests
Portfolio selection, Sustainable production, Operation management.
Honghan Ye
Education
M.S.E. 2017, Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky, USA.
B.S.E. 2015, Precision Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, China.
Thesis title:Adaptive scheduling for Operating Room Management
Research interests
Flowshop scheduling, Manufacturing systems, Healthcare systems scheduling, Heuristics design, Pareto optimization.
Xinwei Pan
Thesis Title: Forecasting the workload with hybrid model to reduce the inefficiency cost.
Education
M.S.E. 2017, Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky, USA
B.S.E. 2013. Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China.
Research interests
Heuristic Design, Forecasting, Optimization
Projects
08/2016 – 08/2018
Systematic evaluation of operating room scheduling across the perioperative process
Role: Principal Investigator
Agency: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Duration: 24 months
Publications
1. Li, W., Tu, Y.L., "Adaptive production scheduling and control in one-of-a-kind production.", In Rodrigo da Rosa Righi (ed), Production Scheduling, InTech - Open Access Publisher: ISBN 978-953-307-935-6.
- Ye, H., Li, W., Abedini, A. and Nault, B., 2017. An effective and efficient heuristic for no-wait flow shop production to minimize total completion time. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 108, pp.57-69.
- Freiheit, T. and Li, W., 2017. The effect of work content imbalance and its interaction with scheduling method on sequential flow line performance. International Journal of Production Research, 55(10), pp.2791-2805.
- Ye, H., Li, W. and Abedini, A., 2017. An improved heuristic for no-wait flow shop to minimize makespan. Journal of Manufacturing Systems. In Press.
- Li, W., Freiheit, T. and Miao, E., 2017. A lever concept integrated with simple rules for flow shop scheduling. International Journal of Production Research, 55(11), pp.3110-3125.
- Ye, H., Li, W. and Miao, E., 2016. An effective heuristic for no-wait flow shop production to minimize makespan. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 40, pp.2-7.
- Luo, X., Li, W., Kwong, C.K. and Cao, Y., 2016. Optimisation of product family design with consideration of supply risk and discount. Research in engineering design, 27(1), pp.37-54.
- Li, W. and Freiheit, T.I., 2016. An effective heuristic for adaptive control of job sequences subject to variation in processing times. International Journal of Production Research, 54(12), pp.3491-3507.
- Luo, X., Li, W., Tu, Y., Xue, D. and Tang, J., 2011. Operator allocation planning for reconfigurable production line in one-of-a-kind production. International Journal of Production Research, 49(3), pp.689-705.
- Liu, X., Li, W., Tu, Y.L. and Zhang, W.J., 2011. An expert system for an emergency response management in Networked Safe Service Systems. Expert Systems with Applications, 38(9), pp.11928-11938.
- Li, W., Luo, X., Xue, D. and Tu, Y., 2011. A heuristic for adaptive production scheduling and control in flow shop production. International Journal of Production Research, 49(11), pp.3151-3170.
- Li, W., Nault, B.R., Xue, D. and Tu, Y., 2011. An efficient heuristic for adaptive production scheduling and control in one-of-a-kind production. Computers & Operations Research, 38(1), pp.267-276.
- Luo, X., Li, W., Tu, Y., Xue, D. and Tang, J., 2010. Optimal resource allocation for hybrid flow shop in one-of-a-kind production. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 23(2), pp.146-154.
- Li, W., Nault, B.R., Abedini, A., Pan, X., Ye, H., Jawahir, I.S., Routh, K., and Saito, K. 2017. Balancing Trade-offs between Utilization and Work-in Process Inventory Levels in Flow Shop Production, Eighth International Symposium on Scale Modeling. (Accepted)
- Reddy Gunna, V., Abedini, A. and Li, W., 2017. Maximizing operating room performance using portfolio selection. Procedia Manufacturing, 10, pp.83-91.
- Abedini, A., Li, W. and Ye, H., 2017. An optimization model for operating room scheduling to reduce blocking across the perioperative process. Procedia Manufacturing, 10, pp.60-70.
- Abedini, A., Ye, H. and Li, W., 2016. Operating Room Planning under Surgery Type and Priority Constraints. Procedia Manufacturing, 5, pp.15-25.
- Li, W., Dai, H. and Zhang, D., 2015. The relationship between maximum completion time and total completion time in flowshop production. Procedia Manufacturing, 1, pp.146-156.
- Li, W., Mitchell, V.L. and Nault, B.R., 2014, January. Inconsistent Objectives in Operating Room Scheduling. In IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings (p. 727). Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE).
- Li, W., Nault, B.R. 2011. Variation in processing time in one-of-a-kind production: case studies using the state space heuristic. 41st International conference on Computers & Industrial Engineering, pp. 611-616 - Paper presented by Wei Li at CIE41.
- Li, W., Tu, Y.L., Nault, B.R., and Xue, D. 2009. A state-space heuristic for adaptive production control in one-of-a-kind production. Transactions of the North American Manufacturing Research Institute of SME, vol. 37, pp. 483-490 - Paper presented by Wei Li at NAMRC 37, 2009.
- Li, W., Tu, Y.L., and Xue, D. 2009. An efficient heuristic for adaptive production scheduling and control in one-of-a-kind production shop floors. Proceedings of 8th Wuhan International Conferences on E-Business,Wuhan, China, vol. I-III , pp. 2514-2519.
- Li, W., Nault, B.R., Tu, Y.L., and Xue, D. 2008. A heuristic, State Space, for hybrid flow shop production scheduling and control - Paper presented by Wei Li at the 2008 INFORMS Conference, October, 2008.
- Li, W., Luo, X.G., Tu, Y.L., and Xue, D. 2007. Adaptive production scheduling for one-of-a-kind production with mass customization. Transactions of the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME, vol. 35, pp. 41-48 - Paper presented by Wei Li at NAMRC 35, 2007.
- Li, W., Tu, Y.L., and Xue, D. 2006. Adaptive production scheduling and control for one-of-a-kind production shop floor. Transactions of the North American Manufacturing Research Institute of SME, vol. 34, pp. 159-166 - Paper presented by Wei Li at NAMRC 34, 2006.
- Tu, Y.L., Dean, P.R., Xue, D., and Li, W. 2006. One-of-a-kind production design and manufacture. Proceedings of the 7th International Conferences on Frontiers of Design and Manufacturing, Guangzhou, China, vol. 3, pp. 185-190.