Fuzzy multi-objective bilevel decision making by an approximation Kth-best approach

Many industrial decisions problems are decentralized in which decision makers are arranged at two levels, called bilevel decision problems. Bilevel decision making may involve uncertain parameters which appear either in the objective functions or constraints of the leader or the follower or both. Furthermore, the leader and the follower may have multiple conflict decision objectives that should be optimized simultaneously. This study proposes an approximation K th-best approach to solve the fuzzy multi-objective bilevel problem. Two case based examples further illustrate how to use the approach to solve industrial decision problems

Fuzzy Bi-level Decision-Making Techniques: A Survey

© 2016 the authors. Bi-level decision-making techniques aim to deal with decentralized management problems that feature interactive decision entities distributed throughout a bi-level hierarchy. A challenge in handling bi-level decision problems is that various uncertainties naturally appear in decision-making process. Significant efforts have been devoted that fuzzy set techniques can be used to effectively deal with uncertain issues in bi-level decision-making, known as fuzzy bi-level decision-making techniques, and researchers have successfully gained experience in this area. It is thus vital that an instructive review of current trends in this area should be conducted, not only of the theoretical research but also the practical developments. This paper systematically reviews up-to-date fuzzy bi-level decisionmaking techniques, including models, approaches, algorithms and systems. It also clusters related technique developments into four main categories: basic fuzzy bi-level decision-making, fuzzy bi-level decision-making with multiple optima, fuzzy random bi-level decision-making, and the applications of bi-level decision-making techniques in different domains. By providing state-of-the-art knowledge, this survey paper will directly support researchers and practitioners in their understanding of developments in theoretical research results and applications in relation to fuzzy bi-level decision-making techniques

A compromise-based particle swarm optimization algorithm for solving Bi-level programming problems with fuzzy parameters

© 2015 IEEE. Bi-level programming has arisen to handle decentralized decision-making problems that feature interactive decision entities distributed throughout a bi-level hierarchy. Fuzzy parameters often appear in such a problem in applications and this is called a fuzzy bi-level programming problem. Since the existing approaches lack universality in solving such problems, this study aims to develop a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to solve fuzzy bi-level programming problems in the linear and nonlinear versions. In this paper, we first present a general fuzzy bi-level programming problem and discuss related theoretical properties based on a fuzzy number ranking method commonly used. A PSO algorithm is then developed to solve the fuzzy bi-level programming problem based on different compromised selections by decision entities on the feasible degree for constraint conditions under fuzziness. Lastly, an illustrative numerical example and two benchmark examples are adopted to state the effectiveness of the compromise-based PSO algorithm

An analytics-based heuristic decomposition of a bilevel multiple-follower cutting stock problem

This paper presents a new class of multiple-follower bilevel problems and a heuristic approach to solving them. In this new class of problems, the followers may be nonlinear, do not share constraints or variables, and are at most weakly constrained. This allows the leader variables to be partitioned among the followers. We show that current approaches for solving multiple-follower problems are unsuitable for our new class of problems and instead we propose a novel analytics-based heuristic decomposition approach. This approach uses Monte Carlo simulation and k-medoids clustering to reduce the bilevel problem to a single level, which can then be solved using integer programming techniques. The examples presented show that our approach produces better solutions and scales up better than the other approaches in the literature. Furthermore, for large problems, we combine our approach with the use of self-organising maps in place of k-medoids clustering, which significantly reduces the clustering times. Finally, we apply our approach to a real-life cutting stock problem. Here a forest harvesting problem is reformulated as a multiple-follower bilevel problem and solved using our approachThis publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant Number SFI/12/RC/228

Multilevel decision-making: A survey

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Multilevel decision-making techniques aim to deal with decentralized management problems that feature interactive decision entities distributed throughout a multiple level hierarchy. Significant efforts have been devoted to understanding the fundamental concepts and developing diverse solution algorithms associated with multilevel decision-making by researchers in areas of both mathematics/computer science and business areas. Researchers have emphasized the importance of developing a range of multilevel decision-making techniques to handle a wide variety of management and optimization problems in real-world applications, and have successfully gained experience in this area. It is thus vital that a high quality, instructive review of current trends should be conducted, not only of the theoretical research results but also the practical developments in multilevel decision-making in business. This paper systematically reviews up-to-date multilevel decision-making techniques and clusters related technique developments into four main categories: bi-level decision-making (including multi-objective and multi-follower situations), tri-level decision-making, fuzzy multilevel decision-making, and the applications of these techniques in different domains. By providing state-of-the-art knowledge, this survey will directly support researchers and practical professionals in their understanding of developments in theoretical research results and applications in relation to multilevel decision-making techniques

Particle swarm optimization for bi-level pricing problems in supply chains

With rapid technological innovation and strong competition in hi-tech industries such as computer and communication organizations, the upstream component price and the downstream product cost usually decline significantly with time. As a result, an effective pricing supply chain model is very important. This paper first establishes two bi-level pricing models for pricing problems with the buyer and the vendor in a supply chain designated as the leader and the follower, respectively. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) based algorithm is developed to solve problems defined by these bi-level pricing models. Experiments illustrate that this PSO based algorithm can achieve a profit increase for buyers or vendors if they are treated as the leaders under some situations, compared with the existing methods. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

An algorithm for solving rule sets-based bilevel decision problems

Bilevel decision addresses the problem in which two levels of decision makers each tries to optimize their individual objectives under certain constraints, and to act and react in an uncooperative and sequential manner. Given the difficulty of formulating a bilevel decision problem by mathematical functions, a rule sets-based bilevel decision (RSBLD) model was proposed. This article presents an algorithm to solve a RSBLD problem. A case-based example is given to illustrate the functions of the proposed algorithm. Finally, a set of experiments is analyzed to further show the functions and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

A λ-cut and goal-programming-based algorithm for fuzzy-linear multiple-objective bilevel optimization

Bilevel-programming techniques are developed to handle decentralized problems with two-level decision makers, which are leaders and followers, who may have more than one objective to achieve. This paper proposes a λ-cut and goal-programming-based algorithm to solve fuzzy-linear multiple-objective bilevel (FLMOB) decision problems. First, based on the definition of a distance measure between two fuzzy vectors using λ-cut, a fuzzy-linear bilevel goal (FLBG) model is formatted, and related theorems are proved. Then, using a λ-cut for fuzzy coefficients and a goal-programming strategy for multiple objectives, a λ-cut and goal-programming-based algorithm to solve FLMOB decision problems is presented. A case study for a newsboy problem is adopted to illustrate the application and executing procedure of this algorithm. Finally, experiments are carried out to discuss and analyze the performance of this algorithm. © 2006 IEEE

Stochastic Multilevel Programming with a Hybrid Intelligent Algorithm

A framework of stochastic multilevel programming is proposed for modelling decentralized decision-making problem in stochastic environment. According to different decision criteria, the stochastic decentralized decision-making problem is formulated as expected value multilevel programming, and chanceconstrained multilevel programming. In order to solve the proposed stochastic multilevel programming models for the Stackelberg-Nash equilibriums, genetic algorithms, neural networks and stochastic simulation are integrated to produce a hybrid intelligent algorithm. Finally, two numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the hybrid intelligent algorithm

A reducibility method for the weak linear bilevel programming problems and a case study in principal-agent

© 2018 A weak linear bilevel programming (WLBP) problem often models problems involving hierarchy structure in expert and intelligent systems under the pessimistic point. In the paper, we deal with such a problem. Using the duality theory of linear programming, the WLBP problem is first equivalently transformed into a jointly constrained bilinear programming problem. Then, we show that the resolution of the jointly constrained bilinear programming problem is equivalent to the resolution of a disjoint bilinear programming problem under appropriate assumptions. This may give a possibility to solve the WLBP problem via a single-level disjoint bilinear programming problem. Furthermore, some examples illustrate the solution process and feasibility of the proposed method. Finally, the WLBP problem models a principal-agent problem under the pessimistic point that is also compared with a principal-agent problem under the optimistic point