Generally, significant work is required to make a university timetable. Although attempts have been made to automate this work using a computer system, the cost of introducing and establishing widespread use of the system in many universities has been too high. In this research, we have developed a system for generating university timetables for the School of Human Care Studies at Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences. The system has the following features. - Anyone can obtain a suitable timetable and operation is simple. We also added some practical functions required by the school administrator. - Dramatically reduces the time required to make a timetable; practical use enabling creation of a timetable for an actual university faculty in several seconds. - Low cost and short time required to construct the system; the user interface employs a popular spreadsheet program and we used our development of a general project scheduling solver. This system is flexible and practical, and is able to propose an actual timetable plan. In addition, we gave the timetable planner at the School of Human Care Studies permission to use the system and a simple operation manual. The system will be used in the future to make actual timetables at this university.

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This paper proposes a method to improve the cooking processes and distribution of workload for employees in a restaurant specializing in dinner in order to meet the varying demands of customers' orders. In a restaurant, the total number of dishes differs each day. However, the method of changing the workload distribution among cooking staff according to the total number of dishes to improve cooking speed is not usually used. In this paper, first, we develop a system to compute cooking time through analyzing the behavior of the kitchen staff. The system is incorporated with a recipe system that includes the necessary ingredients and cooking processes, enabling calculation of cooking time without behavior measurement. Second, we analyze the relationship between customers' orders and the workload of each cooking staff using POS data, the recipe system and an attendance planning system. The results suggest that 1) although the recipe system can calculate theoretical cooking time, the correction index is required to calculate actual cooking time because additional operations are required when kitchen staff change the dish prepared, and 2) the restaurant manager can detect operational problems and improve operations by comparing customer orders and kitchen staff workloads.

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The conventional reorder point system has been studied by many researchers, and is still an important issue in inventory management. In the continuous review system, the reorder point is set as an inventory level so that the shortage rate during the procurement lead time becomes less than or equal to the specified allowable level. The conventional design of the reorder point is based on the assumption that demand follows a normal distribution. However, this assumption is not always appropriate. In this study, the design of the reorder point using the limited demand information is proposed.

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Optimal decision-making by manufacturers and retailers in a supply chain under a clearance sale market has been discussed for many years. However, the combination of a clearance sale and profit sharing has not been discussed substantially. In this paper, we present an approach for optimal decisions regarding order quantity and discount ratio in a supply chain with return handling and profit sharing. We assume that a single product is sold in three consecutive periods; the normal sale period, the clearance sale period and the disposal sale period. Two types of supply chains that consist of a manufacturer and a retailer are analyzed; 1) a decentralized supply chain, and 2) a centralized supply chain. In type 1), the decision is made to maximize the retailer's expected profit. In type 2), the decision is made to maximize the whole profit integrating both players' expected profits. We also discuss supply chain coordination as a manufacturer-retailer partnership based on profit sharing. The profit sharing is permitted only in type 2) as the effect of coordination between both players. The results of the coordination effect are shown in numerical examples, that compare the expected profits of each player and the whole system in type 1) with those in type 2) where profit sharing is permitted.

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