Fuzzy-like Optimization Approach for Design and Scheduling of Multipurpose Non-Periodic Facilities

This paper deals with the design and scheduling optimization of multipurpose non-periodic facilities, considering three different approaches to solve the conflicting objectives often present in this type of problems. Like in most facilities, this problem involves the maximization of the total revenue as well as the minimization of the total cost. The best way to deal with these two goals simultaneously is either to combine them into a single criterion (e. g., profit) or to apply a multi-objective optimization approach, although the latter may become very lengthy with the increase of the problem complexity. In this work we present an alternative optimization approach, adapted from symmetric fuzzy linear programming (SFLP), which is applied to the design and scheduling of this kind of facilities. An example is used to show the methodology application and results are compared to those located on the efficient frontier, which were obtained with the mono-objective model through the e-constraint approach.