The Role of combinatorial optimization problems for the efficient decision making of a company- Case study-

Abstract

All company seeks to improve their performance through achieving several objectives to stay in the labor market and increase competitiveness. The problem lies in the fact that it often relies on traditional methods for efficient decision-making, causing a waste of time and effort. The paper aims to find the best car service stations among several proposed stations by the Naftal Company, which seeks to achieve the two most important objectives; maximizing lubricants and tires revenues, and maximizing fuel and LPG revenues for the year 2019. The new applied case study was done with the help of the binary multi-objective knapsack problem, which is considered one of the most important problems in multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems. The problem was solved by the epsilon constraint method using MATLAB and CPLEX software. The study results confirmed that the proposed efficient solution set (Pareto optimal solutions) provides the decision maker with a comprehensive view of how to make their decision in a scientific, thoughtful, logical, and convincing manner that suits his situation and puts him at ease, away from trial and error or relying on self-experience.