The essential multiobjectivity of linear programming

It is argued that any non-trivial real world problems involve multiple objectives. The simplistic approach of combining objectives in linear form can generate highly misleading and biased results, and is poor operational research practice. Such biases are illustrated by means of a simple example, an...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: TJ Stewart
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Operations Research Society of South Africa (ORSSA) 2007-06-01
Series:ORiON
Online Access:http://orion.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/43
Description
Summary:It is argued that any non-trivial real world problems involve multiple objectives. The simplistic approach of combining objectives in linear form can generate highly misleading and biased results, and is poor operational research practice. Such biases are illustrated by means of a simple example, and it is demonstrated that two simple approaches based on goal programming and piecewise linear value functions can largely resolve these problems. These methods require careful attention to problem structuring but are easily implemented by use of standard linear programming (LP) packages.
ISSN:2224-0004