Trend of integration and combination of goal programming

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the place of goal programming within the wider fields of multi-criteria decision making, operational research, and artificial intelligence. Modern operational research methodology no longer regards its constituent techniques as stand-alone modelling and solution tools but looks to combine them. Hence there is a growing body of research in fields such as systems and hyperheuristics (Ozcan et al., 2008), which seek to intelligently select and mix techniques for symbiotic advantage. The consequence for goal programming is that the ‘stand-alone’ goal programme which provides a solution to a single model without reference or utilisation of other techniques is becoming rarer in the literature. Instead, a range of papers that incorporate goal programming into a wider system consisting of multiple analysis tools can be found. This trend is referred to by Jones and Tamiz (2002) as the ‘trend of integration and combination’. Additionally, some articles use goal programming without specifically referencing it as a technique or categorising the model as belonging to the connected fields of linear programming, multi-objective programming, or multi-criteria decision making. This chapter details the way in which goal programming has been combined with differing techniques in statistics, artificial intelligence, operational research, and multi-criteria decision analysis.