Interactive multi-objective transportation planning decisions using fuzzy linear programming

In most real-world situations for transportation planning decision (TPD) problems, environmental coefficients and parameters are imprecise/fuzzy in nature, and the decision maker (DM) generally faces a multi-objective TPD problem in a fuzzy environment. This work develops an interactive fuzzy linear programming (FLP) method for solving TPD problems with fuzzy goals, available supply and forecast demand. The proposed method attempts simultaneously to minimize the total production and transportation costs and the total delivery time with reference to available supply, machine capacities and budget constraints at each source, as well as forecast demand and warehouse space constraints at each destination. In addition, the proposed method provides a systematic framework that facilitates the DM interactively to modify the imprecise data and related parameters until a satisfactory solution is derived. An industrial case is used to demonstrate the feasibility of applying the proposed method to real-world TPD problems. Especially, several significant characteristics of the proposed FLP method are presented in contrast to those of the main TPD methods.