Linear Three-Level Programming Problem With the Application to Hierarchical Organizations
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Date
2007-08
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In many decision processes there is an hierarchy of decision-makers and deci-
sions are taken at di®erent levels in this hierarchy. The decentralized planning
problem has long been recognized as an important decision-making problem.
In many practical decision making activities, decision making structure has
changed in the last few decades, from a single person (or decision maker) and
single criterion (or constraint factor) to multi-person (or decision maker) and
multi-criteria and even to hierarchical (or multi-level) situations. In any or-
ganization with hierarchical decision systems, the sequential and preemptive
nature of the decision process makes the problem of making an optimal de-
cision, and it is di®erent from the usual operations research methods.
In hierarchical decision process decision-makers are often arranged within a
hierarchical administrative structure, each with his/her objective (perhaps
con°icting). A planner at one level of the hierarchy may have an objec-
tive and a set of feasible decision space determined, in part, by other levels.
However, his control instruments may allow him/her to in°uence the policies
at other levels and in this manner improve his/her own objective function.
Therefore a multilevel programming problem approach is developed for mod-
elling such type of decentralized planning problems.
A multilevel programming problem is a nested optimization problem over a
single feasible region. This approach partitions control of the decision vari-
ables among several decision makers,in the hierarchy. Each decision-maker in
the hierarchy acting in a sequence to maximize his/her own objective func-
tion. These decision-makers interact through a set of \corporate" constraints
involving the decision variables of all divisions. The general structure of the
multilevel programming problem method will be discussed in detail and we
will focus on three level linear programming problems.
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Linear Three-Level Programming Problem