A Lagrangian Relaxation for a Fuzzy Random EPQ Problem with Shortages and Redundancy Allocation

What is it about?

This paper develops an economic production quantity (EPQ) model for a multi-product multi objective inventory control problem with fuzzy stochastic demand and backorders. In this model, the annual demand is represented by trapezoidal fuzzy random numbers. The centroid defuzzification and the expected value methods are applied to defuzzify and make decisions in a random environment. In the case where the warehouse space is limited, the Lagrangian relaxation procedure is first employed to determine the optimal order and the maximum backorder quantities of the products such that the total inventory cost is minimized. The optimal solution obtained by the proposed approach is compared with that obtained by the traditional deterministic method. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis presents the rationality of the solution. Then, the model is extended to a multi-objective integer programming problem in which the optimal numbers of redundant production machines are determined to maximize the production system reliability. In this model, several constraints are considered to fit real world situations. As the second model is developed for an NP hard problem and hence cannot be solved using exact methods in a reasonable computational time, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm called non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) is employed to provide Pareto front solutions. Due to non-availability of benchmark in the literature, another multi objective evolutionary algorithm called non-dominated ranking genetic algorithm (NRGA) is implemented as well to validate the obtained results and evaluate the performance of NSGA-II. In addition, the Taguchi method is used to calibrate the parameters of both algorithms for better performance.

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