DISTANCE FUNCTION AND FUZZY GOAL PROGRAMMING MODELS FOR EFFECTIVE SHOPPING MALL MANAGEMENT

Abstract

In today's competitive environment, managing shopping malls is a challenging task. Electricity consumption directly impacts greenhouse gas emissions and recurring costs, while effective utilisation of leasable areas influences the profitability of malls. Retail tenant mix may play a vital role in the success of shopping malls by attracting more shoppers. In this paper, we present distance function and fuzzy goal programming (FGP) models for an effective shopping mall management. A solution procedure for finding the optimal tenant mix was presented. The three objectives of the model formulation were the maximising of the total leasable area, the minimising of the total electricity consumption and the maximising of the total number of shops. A distance function method was suggested to solve the obtained nonlinear integer programming problem. The problem was also solved using three FGP models. The superiority of the distance function approach over the FGP models was evidenced in the case example of the shopping mall located in Kolkata, India.