OPERATIONS RESEARCH

LECTURE NOTES

“GOAL PROGRAMMING”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu

Acknowledgements:
I would like to acknowledge Prof. W.L. Winston's "Operations Research: Applications and Algorithms“
(slides submitted by Brooks/Cole, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc.) and Prof. J.E. Beasley's
lecture notes which greatly influence these notes...
I retain responsibility for all errors and would love to hear from readers...

www.isl.itu.edu.tr/ya

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

CONTENTS

GOAL PROGRAMMING
1. MULTIPLE OBJECTIVES........................................................................................ 2
2. DEVIATIONAL VARIABLES ................................................................................... 4
3. PREEMPTIVE GOAL PROGRAMMING .................................................................. 5
3.1 Graphical Solution .........................................................................................................6
3.2 Goal Programming Simplex .........................................................................................9

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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GOAL PROGRAMMING

1. MULTIPLE OBJECTIVES

In some situations, a decision maker may face multiple objectives, and there may be no
point in an LP’s feasible region satisfying all objectives.
In such a case, how can the decision maker choose a satisfactory decision?
Goal Programming, a variation of LP considering more than one objective (goals) in the
objective function, is one technique that can be used in such situations.

Example 1. Priceler
The Leon Burnit Adveritsing Agency is trying to determine a TV advertising schedule for
Priceler Auto Company.
Priceler has three goals:
• Its ads should be seen by at least 40 million high-income men (HIM).
• Its ads should be seen by at least 60 million low-income people (LIP).
• Its ads should be seen by at least 35 million high-income women (HIW).
Leon Burnit can purchase two types of ads: those shown during football games and
those shown during soap operas.
At most, $600,000 can be spent on ads.
The advertising costs and potential audiences of a one-minute ad of each type are
shown.
Millions of Viewers
Ad HIM LIP HIW Cost (S)
Football 7 10 5 100,000
Soap Opera 3 5 4 60,000

Leon Burnit must determine how many football ads and soap opera ads to purchase for
Priceler.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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Answer
Let
x1 = # of minutes of ads shown during football games
x2 = # of minutes of ads shown during soap operas
Then any feasible solution to the following LP would meet Priceler’s goals:
min (or max) z=0x1 + 0x2
s.t. 7x1 + 3x2 ≥ 40 (HIM constraint)
10x1 + 5x2 ≥ 60 (LIP constraint)
5x1 + 4x2 ≥ 35 (HIW constraint)
100x1 + 60x2 ≤ 600 (Budget constraint)
x1, x2 ≥ 0

No point that satisfies the budget constraint meets all three of Priceler’s goals Æ LP is
infeasible
Since it is impossible to meet all of Priceler’s goals, Burnit might ask Priceler to identify,
for each goal, a cost that is incurred for failing to meet the goal.
Penalties
Each million exposures by which Priceler falls short of
• the HIM goal costs Priceler a $200,000 penalty
• the LIP goal costs Priceler a $100,000 penalty
• the HIW goal costs Priceler a $50,000 penalty
because of lost sales

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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Revised Answer
Burnit can then formulate an LP that minimizes the cost incurred in deviating from
Priceler’s three goals.
The trick is to transform each inequality constraint that represents one of Priceler’s goals
into an equality constraint.
Because it is not known whether a given solution will undersatisfy or oversatisfy a given
goal, we need to define the following variables.
si+ = amount by which the ith goal level is exceeded.
si- = amount by which the ith goal level is underachieved
The si+ and si- are referred to as deviational variables.
At least one or both deviational variables in a goal constraint must equal zero.
Burnit can minimize the penalty from Priceler’s lost sales by solving the following LP.
min z = 200s1- + 100s2- + 50s3-
s.t. 7x1 + 3x2 + s1- - s1+ = 40 (HIM constraint)
10x1 + 5x2 + s2- - s2+ = 60 (LIP constraint)
5x1 + 4x2 + s3- - s3+ = 35 (HIW constraint)
100x1 + 60x2 ≤ 600 (Budget constraint)
All variables nonnegative
Optimal Sol’n and Report
The optimal solution to this LP is
z=250, x1=6, x2=0,
s1+=2, s2+=0, s3+=0, s1-=0, s2-=0, s3-=5
6 minutes of ads should be shown during football games.
This meets goal 1 and goal 2 but fails to meet the least important goal (goal 3). 30 mio
HIW sees Priceler’s ads.

2. DEVIATIONAL VARIABLES

If failure to meet goal i occurs when the attained value of an attribute is numerically
smaller than the desired value of goal i, then a term involving si- will appear in the
objective function.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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If failure to meet goal i occurs when the attained value of an attribute is numerically
larger than the desired value of goal i, then a term involving si+ will appear in the
objective function.
Also, if we want to meet a goal exactly and a penalty is assessed for going both over
and under a goal, then terms involving si-, si+ will appear in the objective function.

Example 2. Modified Priceler

Suppose Priceler regards the budget restriction as a goal.
Priceler identifies a $1 penalty for each dollar by which this goal is unmet.
Answer
Then the appropriate goal programming formulation would be:
min z = 200s1- + 100s2- + 50s3- + 50s4+
s.t. 7x1 + 3x2 + s1- - s1+ = 40 (HIM constraint)
10x1 + 5x2 + s2- - s2+ = 60 (LIP constraint)
5x1 + 4x2 + s3- - s3+ = 35 (HIW constraint)
100x1 + 60x2 + s4- - s4+ = 600 (Budget constraint)
All variables nonnegative
Optimal Sol’n & Report
The optimal solution to this LP is
z=100/3, x1=13/3, x2=10/3,
s1+=1/3, s2+=0, s3+=0, s4+=100/3, s1-=0, s2-=0, s3-=0, s4-=0
13/3 minutes of ads should be shown during football games and 10/3 minutes of ads
should be shown during soap operas
This meets all three advertising goals by going $100/3 thousand over budget.

3. PREEMPTIVE GOAL PROGRAMMING

In many situations, a decision maker may not be able to determine precisely the relative
importance of the goals.
When this is the case, preemptive goal programming (PGP) may prove to be a useful
tool.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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To apply PGP, the decision maker must rank her or his goals from the most important
(goal 1) to least important (goal n).
The objective function coefficient Pi represents the weight of goal i:
P1 >>> P2 >>> ... >>> Pn
This definition ensures that the decision maker first tries to satisfy the most important
goal.
Then among all points that satisfy goal 1, the decision maker tries to come as close as
possible to satisfying goal 2, and so forth.
We continue in this fashion until the only way we can come closer to satisfying a goal is
to increase the deviation from a higher priority goal.

3.1 Graphical Solution

When a PGP problem involves only two decision variables, the optimal solution can be
found graphically.

Example 2. Beaver Creek Pottery

(Taylor 9, p. 358)
maximize z=40x1 + 50x2
subject to
x1 + 2x2 ≤ 40 hours of labor
4x1 + 3x2 ≤ 120 pounds of clay
x 1 , x2 ≥ 0
where x1 = number of bowls produced
x2 = number of mugs produced
Adding objectives (goals) in order of importance, the company:
• does not want to use fewer than 40 hours of labor per day;
• would like to achieve a satisfactory profit level of $1,600 per day;
• prefers not to keep more than 120 pounds of clay on hand each day;
• would like to minimize the amount of overtime

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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Answer
Labor goal constraint (1, not less than 40 hours labor):
minimize P1d1-
Add profit goal constraint (2, achieve profit of $1,600):
minimize P1d1-, P2d2-
Add material goal constraint (3, avoid keeping more than 120 pounds of clay on hand):
minimize P1d1-, P2d2-, P3d3+
Labor goal constraint (4, minimum overtime):
minimize P1d1-, P2d2-, P3d3+, P4d1+

Complete goal programming model:

minimize P1d1-, P2d2-, P3d3+, P4d1+
subject to
x1 + 2x2 + d1- - d1+ = 40
40x1 + 50x2 + d2- - d2+ = 1600
4x1 + 3x2 + d3- - d3+ = 120
x1, x2, d1-, d1+, d2-, d2+, d3-, d3+ ≥ 0

Goal constraints:

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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The first-priority goal: Minimize d1-

The second-priority goal: Minimize d2-

The third-priority goal: Minimize d3+

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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The fourth-priority goal: Minimize d1+

Optimal Sol’n & Report

x1 = 15, x2 = 20, d1+ = 15
15 bowls, 20 mugs should be produced.
This meets the first three goals by having 15 hours overtime labor.

3.2 Goal Programming Simplex

PGP problems can be solved by an extension of the simplex known as the goal
programming simplex.
The differences between the goal programming simplex and the ordinary simplex are:
• The ordinary simplex has a single row 0, whereas the goal programming simplex
requires n row 0’s (one for each goal).
• In the goal programming simplex, the entering variable is determined as follows
(PGP is a min problem):
o Find the highest priority goal (goal i’) that has not been met
o Find the variable with the most positive coefficient in row 0 (goal i’) and enter
this variable (subject to the following restriction) into the basis.
o If, however, a variable has a negative coefficient in row 0 (goal i’) associated
with a goal having a higher priority than i’, then the variable cannot enter the
basis. In this case, try to find another variable with a positive coefficient in row
0 (goal i’). If no variable can enter the basis move on to row 0 (goal i’+1).

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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• When a pivot is performed, row 0 for each goal must be updated.
• A tableau will yield the optimal solution if all goals are satisfied, or if each variable
that can enter the basis and reduce the value of zi’ for an unsatisfied goal i’ will
increase the deviation from some goal i having a higher priority than goal i’.

Example 4. Preemptive Priceler

min z = P1s1- + P2s2- + P3s3-
s.t. 7x1 + 3x2 + s1- - s1+ = 40 (HIM constraint)
-
10x1 + 5x2 + s2 - s2+ = 60 (LIP constraint)
5x1 + 4x2 + s3- - s3+ = 35 (HIW constraint)
100x1 + 60x2 ≤ 600 (Budget constraint)
All variables nonnegative
Answer
We must separate the objective function into n components
min z1 = P1s1-
min z2 = P2s2-
min z3 = P3s3-
We have three Row 0’s.
Row 0 (goal 1): z1 - P1s1- = 0
Row 0 (goal 2): z2 - P2s2- = 0
Row 0 (goal 3): z3 - P3s3- = 0
We find that BV = {s1-, s2-, s3-, s4} (s4 is the slack variable) is a starting bfs that could be
used to solve Priceler problem
z1 - P1s1- =0
z2 - P2s2- =0
-
z3 - P3s3 =0
7x1 + 3x2 + s1- - s1 + = 40
10x1 + 5x2 + s2- - s2 + = 60
5x1 + 4x2 + s3- - s3 + = 35
100x1 + 60x2 + s4 = 600

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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We must eliminate all variables in the starting basis from each row 0.
Add “P1×Row 1” to “Row 0 (goal 1)”
Add “P2×Row 2” to “Row 0 (goal 2)”
Add “P3×Row 3” to “Row 0 (goal 3)”
x1 x2 s 1+ s 2+ s 3+ s 1- s 2- s 3- s4 RHS Ratio
Row 0 (HIM) 7P 1 3P 1 -P 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 40P 1
Row 0 (LIP) 10P 2 5P 2 0 -P 2 0 0 0 0 0 60P 2
Row 0 (HIW) 5P 3 4P 3 0 0 -P 3 0 0 0 0 35P 3
HIM 7 3 -1 0 0 1 0 0 0 40 5.7143
LIP 10 5 0 -1 0 0 1 0 0 60 6
HIW 5 4 0 0 -1 0 0 1 0 35 7
Budget 100 60 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 600 6

x1 x2 s 1+ s 2+ s 3+ s 1- s 2- s 3- s4 RHS Ratio
Row 0 (HIM) 0 0 0 0 0 -P 1 0 0 0 0
Row 0 (LIP) 0 5P 2/7 10P 2/7 -P 2 0 -10P 2/7 0 0 0 20P 2/7
Row 0 (HIW) 0 13P 3/7 5P 3/7 0 -P 3 -5P 3/7 0 0 0 45P 3/7
HIM 1 3/7 -1/7 0 0 1/7 0 0 0 40/7
LIP 0 5/7 10/7 -1 0 -10/7 1 0 0 20/7 2
HIW 0 13/7 5/7 0 -1 -5/7 0 1 0 45/7 9
Budget 0 120/7 100/7 0 0 -100/7 0 0 1 200/7 2

x1 x2 s 1+ s 2+ s 3+ s 1- s 2- s 3- s4 RHS
Row 0 (HIM) 0 0 0 0 0 -P 1 0 0 0 0
Row 0 (LIP) 0 -P 2 0 -P 2 0 0 0 0 -P 2/10 0
Row 0 (HIW) 0 P3 0 0 -P 3 0 0 0 -P 3/20 5P 3
HIM 1 3/5 0 0 0 0 0 0 1/100 6
LIP 0 -1 0 -1 0 0 1 0 -1/10 0
HIW 0 1 0 0 -1 0 0 1 -1/20 5
Budget 0 6/5 1 0 0 -1 0 0 7/100 2

Optimal Sol’n & Report

The optimal solution to this LP is
z3=5P3, x1=6, x2=0,
s1+=2, s2+=0, s3+=0, s1-=0, s2-=0, s3-=5
6 minutes of ads should be shown during football games.
This meets goal 1 and goal 2 but fails to meet the least important goal (goal 3). 30 mio
HIW sees Priceler’s ads.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Y. İlker Topcu (www.ilkertopcu.net)

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