ABSTRACT
This chapter presents methodologies and applications for analyzing multiple objective situations with a very large number of alternatives. It focuses on one area: goal programming (GP), which is probably the most popular of all of the multiple objective optimization methodologies and presents the basic concepts of GP. The chapter discusses a decision maker’s preference structure associated with a goal program, including the concepts of lexicographic redundancy and Pareto inefficiency. It provides an introduction to interactive GP and metagoal programming. In GP, the information concerning the decision maker’s preferences over multiple objectives is embodied in goals and associated weights on those goals. In lexicographic goal programs, the goals are placed in ordered categories of importance such that goals in the most important category must be achieved before goals in the second most important category. The selection of suppliers and the subsequent negotiation with the same are important activities for many production organizations.
