ABSTRACT
Decision making is a strategic action that requires optimization techniques to be accomplished while considering resource constraints. The optimization can be viewed as a powerful tool, expressed as a quantitative modeling of the problem that, once solved, outputs the best solution as a rational decision that corresponds to the most profi table one. It starts by the defi nition of the main goal of the decision maker (DM). As this goal should take into account structural requirements, a set of constraints are to be enumerated. Thus, the obtained model is an alternative specifi cation of the addressed problem, named optimization problem. Depending on the problem’s features, as the complexity, a solution approach can be adopted to generate optimal or near optimal solutions. The main steps that characterize an optimization problem are fi rstly, the specifi cation of the objective(s) to be optimized (minimized or maximized) in terms of the decision variables. Then, the statement of feasibility constraints.
