Research Article

Engineering interactive multi-objective approach, categorically imperative for collaborative decision-making in product design

^*1Imaekhai Lawrence and ²Diamond Blessing

¹Department of Materials and Production Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria

²Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria

*Corresponding Author E-mail: oboscos@gmail.com

Accepted 16 November 2013

Abstract

This paper presents a new procedure to solve multi-objective problems, where the objectives are distributed to various working groups and the decision process is centralized. The approach is interactive and considers the preferences of the working groups. It is based on two techniques: an interactive technique that solves multi-objective problems based on goal programming, and a technique called “linear physical programming” this considers the preferences of the working groups. The approach generates Pareto-optimal solutions. It guides the director in the determination of target values for the objective functions. The approach was tested on two problems that present its capacity to generate Pareto-optimal solutions and to show the convergence to compromise solutions for all the working groups.

Keywords: Multi-Objective, Product Design, Programming, Optimization, Design