Asli Sencer | Bogazici University (original) (raw)
Papers by Asli Sencer
In the global trucking industry, vertical collaboration between shippers and carriers is attained... more In the global trucking industry, vertical collaboration between shippers and carriers is attained by intermediaries, called brokers. Brokers organize carriers for a shipper in accordance with its quality and price requirements, and support carriers to collaborate horizontally by sharing a large distribution order from a shipper. Brokers also act as trustees, preventing the passing of private information of any party to the others. Despite these benefits, intermediaries in the trucking industry are involved in several sustainability problems, including high costs, high levels of carbon emissions, high percentages of empty miles, low-capacity utilizations, and driver shortages. Several studies have acknowledged the importance of improving collaboration to address these problems. Obviously, the major concern of brokers is not collaboration, but rather to optimize their own gains. This paper investigates the potential of blockchain technology to improve collaboration in the trucking ind...
SIMULATION, 2021
Warehouse design is critical in the air cargo industry, where service standards are high and comp... more Warehouse design is critical in the air cargo industry, where service standards are high and competition is fierce. The designers of air cargo warehouses consider various criteria like costs, system failure risks, customer perception, and marketing power to evaluate alternative designs. The issue of designing an air cargo warehouse is generally considered by design and consulting companies, which have broad experience in operational design are lacking in suggesting robust alternatives that build upon on a well-structured theoretical framework. The alternative warehouse designs are generated by considering different combinations of resource capacities such as the number of gates, workstations and storage areas. The evaluation of these alternative designs requires the use of analytical methodologies for multi-criteria decision-making. At this point, two methodologies from literature may be helpful: (i) simulation, which is a popular tool to evaluate operational performance and (ii) th...
Operations Research Perspectives
Naval Research Logistics, 2005
We consider an EOQ model with multiple suppliers that have random capacities, which leads to unce... more We consider an EOQ model with multiple suppliers that have random capacities, which leads to uncertain yield in orders. A given order is fully received from a supplier if the order quantity is less than the supplier's capacity; otherwise, the quantity received is equal to the available capacity. The optimal order quantities for the suppliers can be obtained as the unique solution of an implicit set of equations in which the expected unsatisfied order is the same for each supplier. Further characterizations and properties are obtained for the uniform and exponential capacity cases with discussions on the issues related to diversification among suppliers.
International Journal of Information Engineering and Electronic Business, 2015
Collaborative research includes research activities conducted by a group of people working at dif... more Collaborative research includes research activities conducted by a group of people working at different locations and has become a hot issue due to the effects of globalization and advances in information technology (IT). The aim of this study is to design, develop, implement and evaluate an IT environment to better manage the standard processes of a collaborative research by providing more efficient use of the resources. Inspired by the studies in the literature, the basic steps and requirements of a typical collaborative research are identified and the related process flow diagram is generated. Next a Web 2.0 supported business process management (BPM) environment is developed in the direction of the process flow diagram to support collaborative researches. A commercial BPM system is used to automate and monitor the processes, whereas Web 2.0 platform is used for communications management, workspace sharing and data collection. The proposed environment is experimented by a case study conducted with a group of researchers; its performance is evaluated and directions for improvements are identified. It is concluded that in general the Web 2.0 supported BPM environment is functional, reliable and useful for collaborative research. The environment is found to be more suitable for research support processes compared to basic research processes.
Management Research Review, 2012
Emerald Article: Collaborative research: opinions and information technology utilization potentia... more Emerald Article: Collaborative research: opinions and information technology utilization potential Hande Kimiloglu, Meltem Ozturan, Asli Sencer Erdem Article information:
2006 Technology Management for the Global Future - PICMET 2006 Conference, 2006
This study focuses on improvement of supply chain performance in one of the biggest commodity pro... more This study focuses on improvement of supply chain performance in one of the biggest commodity product manufacturers in Turkey. The aim is to generate a tool running as a decision support system (DSS) and provide an easy to use simulation environment for the supply chain managers in decision making. In the current supply chain system the manufacturer offers a discount
2014 3rd Mediterranean Conference on Embedded Computing (MECO), 2014
ABSTRACT Information technology is one of the most risky investment areas for all companies from ... more ABSTRACT Information technology is one of the most risky investment areas for all companies from different sectors. Lack of administrative information, risk of high failure rates are the most common factors that affect decision makers negatively regarding IT projects. Such unforeseen costs may increase total cost of ownership as compared to its initial estimation. Hence analyzing product life cycle and estimating total costs more accurately according to failure rates can decrease uncertainty and helps firms to make better decisions. This paper examines the relationship between time and failure rate of high-end IT products currently in use by industry. In line with the theoretical approach suggested in the literature, an implementation is made by empirical data and future failure rate is predicted by using Weibull distribution. Accuracy and precision results are compared with the existing studies. As a next step, a model is proposed to estimate the maintenance costs.
2006 Technology Management for the Global Future - PICMET 2006 Conference, 2006
Abstract Workforce scheduling, shift design and staff allocation are the major problems in call c... more Abstract Workforce scheduling, shift design and staff allocation are the major problems in call center management. The aim of the call center manager is to allocate and dynamically update the workforce so that the incoming calls are answered in the shortest possible time ...
International Journal of Production Economics, 1999
In previous work the EOQ formula without consideration to backlogging has been given a derivation... more In previous work the EOQ formula without consideration to backlogging has been given a derivation without reference to the use of derivatives, neither for necessary conditions nor for second-order sufficient conditions. Furthermore, this algebraic derivation immediately provided the value of the average cost function in optimum.
International Journal of Production Economics, 2002
We consider a single item inventory model which is observed periodically in a randomly changing e... more We consider a single item inventory model which is observed periodically in a randomly changing environment. All model parameters are specified by the state of the environment which is assumed to be a time-homogeneous Markov chain. Yield is random due to the random capacity of ...
Expert Systems with Applications, 2012
This study aims to develop models and generate a decision support system (DSS) for the improvemen... more This study aims to develop models and generate a decision support system (DSS) for the improvement of supplier evaluation and order allocation decisions in a supply chain. Supplier evaluation and order allocation are complex, multi criteria decisions. Initially, an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) model is developed for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of suppliers. Based on these evaluations, a goal programming (GP) model is developed for order allocation among suppliers. The models are integrated into a DSS that provides a dynamic, flexible and fast decision making environment. The DSS environment is tested at the purchasing department of a manufacturer and feedbacks are obtained.
Business Process Management (BPM) system helps organizations to measure their processes and optim... more Business Process Management (BPM) system helps organizations to measure their processes and optimize their resources. Implementing an Information System is costly and the success of the implementation depends on choice of the appropriate BPM system. This raises the necessity to evaluate the BPM system comprehensively from different perspectives. In this study an evaluation framework is designed to provide a flexible and comprehensive evaluation of a BPM system. The approach makes use of ISO Standards to measure the technical criteria and considers marketing criteria as well. Next a Decision Support System (DSS) is developed and is illustrated by evaluating and comparing two different BPM systems.
SIMULATION, Feb 11, 2013
Workforce management is critical in call centers, where thousands of calls are handled by hundred... more Workforce management is critical in call centers, where thousands of calls are handled by hundreds of agents every day. In a call center, where the call arrival rates tend to fluctuate during the day, the agent allocation plans are required to be planned flexibly and the number of operating call center agents ought to be updated whenever needed, in order to keep the customer satisfaction level over a predefined level. Workforce plans are usually generated by the use of queuing models that are based on Erlang C calculations. However, they have assumptions that oversimplify the real system and jeopardize the validation of the model. At this point, the simulation models, which do not have such restrictive assumptions, are effective in calculating the required number of agents for each time period and measuring the performance of a given shift schedule. In this study, a simulation-based decision support system (DSS) is developed that runs on real-time data for one of the largest call centers in Turkey. The graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are designed in accordance with the man-machine interaction consideration to increase the usability, functionality and effectiveness of the DSS. It is shown that the combination of the advantages of simulation with a flexible and user-friendly DSS environment provides more effective and efficient workforce planning and performance reporting in call centers.
In the global trucking industry, vertical collaboration between shippers and carriers is attained... more In the global trucking industry, vertical collaboration between shippers and carriers is attained by intermediaries, called brokers. Brokers organize carriers for a shipper in accordance with its quality and price requirements, and support carriers to collaborate horizontally by sharing a large distribution order from a shipper. Brokers also act as trustees, preventing the passing of private information of any party to the others. Despite these benefits, intermediaries in the trucking industry are involved in several sustainability problems, including high costs, high levels of carbon emissions, high percentages of empty miles, low-capacity utilizations, and driver shortages. Several studies have acknowledged the importance of improving collaboration to address these problems. Obviously, the major concern of brokers is not collaboration, but rather to optimize their own gains. This paper investigates the potential of blockchain technology to improve collaboration in the trucking ind...
SIMULATION, 2021
Warehouse design is critical in the air cargo industry, where service standards are high and comp... more Warehouse design is critical in the air cargo industry, where service standards are high and competition is fierce. The designers of air cargo warehouses consider various criteria like costs, system failure risks, customer perception, and marketing power to evaluate alternative designs. The issue of designing an air cargo warehouse is generally considered by design and consulting companies, which have broad experience in operational design are lacking in suggesting robust alternatives that build upon on a well-structured theoretical framework. The alternative warehouse designs are generated by considering different combinations of resource capacities such as the number of gates, workstations and storage areas. The evaluation of these alternative designs requires the use of analytical methodologies for multi-criteria decision-making. At this point, two methodologies from literature may be helpful: (i) simulation, which is a popular tool to evaluate operational performance and (ii) th...
Operations Research Perspectives
Naval Research Logistics, 2005
We consider an EOQ model with multiple suppliers that have random capacities, which leads to unce... more We consider an EOQ model with multiple suppliers that have random capacities, which leads to uncertain yield in orders. A given order is fully received from a supplier if the order quantity is less than the supplier's capacity; otherwise, the quantity received is equal to the available capacity. The optimal order quantities for the suppliers can be obtained as the unique solution of an implicit set of equations in which the expected unsatisfied order is the same for each supplier. Further characterizations and properties are obtained for the uniform and exponential capacity cases with discussions on the issues related to diversification among suppliers.
International Journal of Information Engineering and Electronic Business, 2015
Collaborative research includes research activities conducted by a group of people working at dif... more Collaborative research includes research activities conducted by a group of people working at different locations and has become a hot issue due to the effects of globalization and advances in information technology (IT). The aim of this study is to design, develop, implement and evaluate an IT environment to better manage the standard processes of a collaborative research by providing more efficient use of the resources. Inspired by the studies in the literature, the basic steps and requirements of a typical collaborative research are identified and the related process flow diagram is generated. Next a Web 2.0 supported business process management (BPM) environment is developed in the direction of the process flow diagram to support collaborative researches. A commercial BPM system is used to automate and monitor the processes, whereas Web 2.0 platform is used for communications management, workspace sharing and data collection. The proposed environment is experimented by a case study conducted with a group of researchers; its performance is evaluated and directions for improvements are identified. It is concluded that in general the Web 2.0 supported BPM environment is functional, reliable and useful for collaborative research. The environment is found to be more suitable for research support processes compared to basic research processes.
Management Research Review, 2012
Emerald Article: Collaborative research: opinions and information technology utilization potentia... more Emerald Article: Collaborative research: opinions and information technology utilization potential Hande Kimiloglu, Meltem Ozturan, Asli Sencer Erdem Article information:
2006 Technology Management for the Global Future - PICMET 2006 Conference, 2006
This study focuses on improvement of supply chain performance in one of the biggest commodity pro... more This study focuses on improvement of supply chain performance in one of the biggest commodity product manufacturers in Turkey. The aim is to generate a tool running as a decision support system (DSS) and provide an easy to use simulation environment for the supply chain managers in decision making. In the current supply chain system the manufacturer offers a discount
2014 3rd Mediterranean Conference on Embedded Computing (MECO), 2014
ABSTRACT Information technology is one of the most risky investment areas for all companies from ... more ABSTRACT Information technology is one of the most risky investment areas for all companies from different sectors. Lack of administrative information, risk of high failure rates are the most common factors that affect decision makers negatively regarding IT projects. Such unforeseen costs may increase total cost of ownership as compared to its initial estimation. Hence analyzing product life cycle and estimating total costs more accurately according to failure rates can decrease uncertainty and helps firms to make better decisions. This paper examines the relationship between time and failure rate of high-end IT products currently in use by industry. In line with the theoretical approach suggested in the literature, an implementation is made by empirical data and future failure rate is predicted by using Weibull distribution. Accuracy and precision results are compared with the existing studies. As a next step, a model is proposed to estimate the maintenance costs.
2006 Technology Management for the Global Future - PICMET 2006 Conference, 2006
Abstract Workforce scheduling, shift design and staff allocation are the major problems in call c... more Abstract Workforce scheduling, shift design and staff allocation are the major problems in call center management. The aim of the call center manager is to allocate and dynamically update the workforce so that the incoming calls are answered in the shortest possible time ...
International Journal of Production Economics, 1999
In previous work the EOQ formula without consideration to backlogging has been given a derivation... more In previous work the EOQ formula without consideration to backlogging has been given a derivation without reference to the use of derivatives, neither for necessary conditions nor for second-order sufficient conditions. Furthermore, this algebraic derivation immediately provided the value of the average cost function in optimum.
International Journal of Production Economics, 2002
We consider a single item inventory model which is observed periodically in a randomly changing e... more We consider a single item inventory model which is observed periodically in a randomly changing environment. All model parameters are specified by the state of the environment which is assumed to be a time-homogeneous Markov chain. Yield is random due to the random capacity of ...
Expert Systems with Applications, 2012
This study aims to develop models and generate a decision support system (DSS) for the improvemen... more This study aims to develop models and generate a decision support system (DSS) for the improvement of supplier evaluation and order allocation decisions in a supply chain. Supplier evaluation and order allocation are complex, multi criteria decisions. Initially, an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) model is developed for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of suppliers. Based on these evaluations, a goal programming (GP) model is developed for order allocation among suppliers. The models are integrated into a DSS that provides a dynamic, flexible and fast decision making environment. The DSS environment is tested at the purchasing department of a manufacturer and feedbacks are obtained.
Business Process Management (BPM) system helps organizations to measure their processes and optim... more Business Process Management (BPM) system helps organizations to measure their processes and optimize their resources. Implementing an Information System is costly and the success of the implementation depends on choice of the appropriate BPM system. This raises the necessity to evaluate the BPM system comprehensively from different perspectives. In this study an evaluation framework is designed to provide a flexible and comprehensive evaluation of a BPM system. The approach makes use of ISO Standards to measure the technical criteria and considers marketing criteria as well. Next a Decision Support System (DSS) is developed and is illustrated by evaluating and comparing two different BPM systems.
SIMULATION, Feb 11, 2013
Workforce management is critical in call centers, where thousands of calls are handled by hundred... more Workforce management is critical in call centers, where thousands of calls are handled by hundreds of agents every day. In a call center, where the call arrival rates tend to fluctuate during the day, the agent allocation plans are required to be planned flexibly and the number of operating call center agents ought to be updated whenever needed, in order to keep the customer satisfaction level over a predefined level. Workforce plans are usually generated by the use of queuing models that are based on Erlang C calculations. However, they have assumptions that oversimplify the real system and jeopardize the validation of the model. At this point, the simulation models, which do not have such restrictive assumptions, are effective in calculating the required number of agents for each time period and measuring the performance of a given shift schedule. In this study, a simulation-based decision support system (DSS) is developed that runs on real-time data for one of the largest call centers in Turkey. The graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are designed in accordance with the man-machine interaction consideration to increase the usability, functionality and effectiveness of the DSS. It is shown that the combination of the advantages of simulation with a flexible and user-friendly DSS environment provides more effective and efficient workforce planning and performance reporting in call centers.