Overview: Network design is being increasingly important and fundamental issue in the fields of engineering, computer science, operations research, such as transportation planning, project management, telecommunication network, SCM (supply chain management) system, scheduling in FMS (flexible manufacturing systems), airline scheduling, and so on. Network models for scheduling problems also provide a useful way to modeling various real world problems and are extensively used in practice.
Many real world applications impose on more complex issues, such as, complex structure, complex constraints, and multiple objects to be handled simultaneously and make the problem intractable to the traditional approaches. Recent advances in evolutionary algorithms such as genetic algorithm, genetic programming, and evolution strategy have made it possible to solve such practical network design and scheduling problems. The tutorial introduces a thorough treatment of evolutionary algorithms, i.e., hybrid genetic algorithms approach to solve several network design problems and scheduling problems as follows:

Part 1: Fundamental Genetic Algorithms and Hybrid Genetic Algorithms.

Part2: Shortest Path Problem (SPP), Minimum Cost Flow problem (MCF), Maximum Flow problem (MXF), Bicriteria Network Design problem, and Minimum Spanning Tree problems.

Part 3: Resource constrained-project scheduling problem (rc-PSP), Resource constrained-multiple project scheduling problem (rc-mPSP) and SCM network design.

Part 4: Several scheduling problems in FMS.
 

Instructor's Background:  Dr. Mitsuo Gen is a Professor in Department (Field) of Information Architecture, Graduate School of Information, Production and Systems at Waseda University, Japan. He was a Visiting Prof. in Dept. of Industrial Engineering & Operations Research at University of California, Berkeley; Aug. 1999 to March 2000 and a Visiting Prof. in Dept. of Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University; Jan.-Feb. and Aug.-Sept. 2000 for the intensive class. He received his B.E., M.S. and Ph.D. from Kogakuin University, Tokyo.

His research interest includes Fuzzy Operations Research, Network Design & Optimization, Reliability Analysis & Design, Genetic Algorithms & Artificial Neural Networks, and their Applications to IE/OR Problems. He has published several books including the books "Genetic Algorithms and Engineering Design", Jan. 1997 and "Genetic Algorithms and Engineering Optimization", Jan. 2000 with Dr. Cheng, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. He has published decades of papers in various international journals such as: IEEE Transaction on Reliability, European J. of Operational Research, Networks, J. of Operational Research Society, Computers and Operations Research, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Inter. J. of Systems Science,　 Computers and Industrial Engineering, J. of Intelligent Manufacturing, Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Fuzzy Optimization & Decision Making, Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing, Australian J. of Intelligent Information Processing Systems, IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals, Electronics and Communications in Japan, and so on.

Dr. Gen organized and chaired several special sessions on Genetic Algorithms and related areas at the following recent international conferences: IEEE Inter. Conference on Systems, Man. & Cyber., International Conference on Computers and Industrial Engineering, European Congress on Intelligent Techniques and Soft Computing, and so on. He edited several special issues on Genetic Algorithms and related areas as a guest editor:

- Genetic Algorithms and Industrial Engineering; Computers and Industrial Engineering, Vol. 　30, No. 4, 1996; Guest Editors: Mitsuo Gen, Gary Wassermann, and Alice Smith.

- Intelligent Engineering Design; Engineering Design and Automation, Vol. 3, No.2, 1997;
Guest Editors: Mitsuo Gen and Alice Smith.
- Evolutionary Computation for Engineering Valuation; Engineering Valuation and Cost
Analysis, 1998; Guest Editors: Mitsuo Gen and Alice Smith.

- Computational Intelligence for Industrial Engineering; Computers and Industrial Engineering,
1999; Guest Editors: Mitsuo Gen, Hamid Seifoddini, and Andreas Bastian.

- Next Generation of Production Management, Inter. J. of Production Economics, Vols. 60/61,
664 pages 1999; Guest Editors: T. Ichimura, M. Kuroda, H. Tsubone, H. Ohta, Mitsuo Gen.

- Supply Chain Management; Computers and Industrial Engineering, Vol. 43, Nos. 1-2, 405
pages, July, 2002: Guest Editors: Young Hae Lee, Mitsuo Gen, Dorit S. Hochbaum.

- Soft Computing for Supply Chain Management; OR Spectrum, Guest Editors: Mitsuo Gen
and Hans-Otto Gunteher, work in process.

He is a member of the editorial board of the following international journals: Computers and Industrial Engineering, OR Spectrum, Fuzzy Optimization and Decision Making, and so on.