IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v45y2015i1p83-97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimizing Network Designs for the World’s Largest Broadband Project

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Ferris

    (NBN Co, Sydney, New South Wales 2060, Australia)

  • Chris Forbes

    (Biarri Networks, Brisbane, Queensland 4105, Australia)

  • Joe Forbes

    (Biarri Networks, Melbourne, Victoria 3181, Australia)

  • Michael Forbes

    (Biarri Networks, Brisbane, Queensland 4064, Australia)

  • Paul Kennedy

    (Biarri Networks, Melbourne, Victoria 3181, Australia)

Abstract

The national broadband network (NBN) is the largest public infrastructure project undertaken in Australia, and NBN Co is the government-owned company responsible for building the network. By using operations research, NBN Co expects to avoid more than $AUD1.7 billion in unnecessary construction and design costs on this $AUD36 billion project. At the beginning of this 10-year project, NBN Co divided the country into more than 3,000 fiber-serving-area modules (FSAMs), each covering approximately 2,500 premises, and will design and construct one FSAM each day. NBN Co contracted with Biarri Networks, an Australian commercial mathematics company, to optimize the design task. To accomplish this, Biarri created a fiber-optic network design (FOND) software product based on a network-flow mixed-integer programming engine. This engine minimizes the cost of materials and labor for each FSAM, subject to a variety of constraints, and provides a solution in less than five minutes. To date, more than 650 FSAM designs have been completed using FOND. This has saved NBN Co an estimated $AUD325 million in avoided construction cost, and the planning time per FSAM has decreased from 145 to 16 days.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Ferris & Chris Forbes & Joe Forbes & Michael Forbes & Paul Kennedy, 2015. "Optimizing Network Designs for the World’s Largest Broadband Project," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 45(1), pages 83-97, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:45:y:2015:i:1:p:83-97
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.2014.0785
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.2014.0785
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.2014.0785?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moon-gil Yoon & Young-ho Baek & Dong-wan Tcha, 1998. "Design of a distributed fiber transport network with hubbing topology," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 510-520, February.
    2. M-G Yoon & J Current, 2008. "The hub location and network design problem with fixed and variable arc costs: formulation and dual-based solution heuristic," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(1), pages 80-89, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael F. Gorman, 2021. "Contextual Complications in Analytical Modeling: When the Problem is Not the Problem," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 51(4), pages 245-261, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alumur, Sibel A. & Yaman, Hande & Kara, Bahar Y., 2012. "Hierarchical multimodal hub location problem with time-definite deliveries," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1107-1120.
    2. Lee, Heeseok & Shi, Yong & Nazem, Sufi M. & Yeol Kang, Sung & Ho Park, Tae & Ho Sohn, Myung, 2001. "Multicriteria hub decision making for rural area telecommunication networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 133(3), pages 483-495, September.
    3. Cabral, Edgar Alberto & Erkut, Erhan & Laporte, Gilbert & Patterson, Raymond A., 2007. "The network design problem with relays," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 180(2), pages 834-844, July.
    4. Leegwater, D.K. & de Groot, J.D., 2004. "Optimisation of connections to a fibre network," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2004-42, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    5. S Alumur & B Y Kara, 2009. "A hub covering network design problem for cargo applications in Turkey," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(10), pages 1349-1359, October.
    6. Alumur, Sibel A. & Kara, Bahar Y. & Karasan, Oya E., 2012. "Multimodal hub location and hub network design," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 927-939.
    7. Gelareh, Shahin & Neamatian Monemi, Rahimeh & Nickel, Stefan, 2015. "Multi-period hub location problems in transportation," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 67-94.
    8. Lin, Cheng-Chang & Lee, Shwu-Chiou, 2018. "Hub network design problem with profit optimization for time-definite LTL freight transportation," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 104-120.
    9. Yaman, Hande, 2011. "Allocation strategies in hub networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 211(3), pages 442-451, June.
    10. Alumur, Sibel A. & Kara, Bahar Y. & Karasan, Oya E., 2009. "The design of single allocation incomplete hub networks," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 936-951, December.
    11. Rothenbächer, Ann-Kathrin & Drexl, Michael & Irnich, Stefan, 2016. "Branch-and-price-and-cut for a service network design and hub location problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(3), pages 935-947.
    12. de Sá, Elisangela Martins & de Camargo, Ricardo Saraiva & de Miranda, Gilberto, 2013. "An improved Benders decomposition algorithm for the tree of hubs location problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 226(2), pages 185-202.
    13. Shan, Wenxuan & Peng, Zixuan & Liu, Jiaming & Yao, Baozhen & Yu, Bin, 2020. "An exact algorithm for inland container transportation network design," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 41-82.
    14. Alumur, Sibel A. & Nickel, Stefan & Saldanha-da-Gama, Francisco, 2012. "Hub location under uncertainty," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 529-543.
    15. Bigotte, João F. & Krass, Dmitry & Antunes, António P. & Berman, Oded, 2010. "Integrated modeling of urban hierarchy and transportation network planning," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 506-522, August.
    16. Huifang Li & Yin Wang, 2023. "Hierarchical Multimodal Hub Location Problem with Carbon Emissions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-23, January.
    17. Meuffels, W.J.M., 2015. "The design of road and air networks for express service providers," Other publications TiSEM d3266cb8-bc55-41be-adc7-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Lin, Cheng-Chang & Lee, Shwu-Chiou, 2010. "The competition game on hub network design," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 618-629, May.
    19. Sibel A. Alumur & Stefan Nickel & Francisco Saldanha-da-Gama & Yusuf Seçerdin, 2016. "Multi-period hub network design problems with modular capacities," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 246(1), pages 289-312, November.
    20. SteadieSeifi, M. & Dellaert, N.P. & Nuijten, W. & Van Woensel, T. & Raoufi, R., 2014. "Multimodal freight transportation planning: A literature review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 1-15.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:45:y:2015:i:1:p:83-97. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.