Inexact two-phase fuzzy programming and its application to municipal solid waste management

Abstract

In this study, an inexact two-phase fuzzy programming approach was proposed for municipal solid waste management. Through introducing multiple control variables, objective function and constraints of the management model were relaxed under different levels, and compromised decision schemes with a high satisfactory level can be expected. Compared to the previous studies, it showed sound capability in identifying key factors and/or input conditions that may significantly affect system outputs, and thus facilitating the decision maker adjusting current system status to benefit the future management. A MSW management problem was provided to demonstrate the performance of the approach. Special parameters having significant or no impact on system performance were specified, which were then respectively changed to constitute two scenarios. The scenario analysis proved the accuracy of the model in identifying key factors. It was also found that the average satisfactory level of optimal solutions from the two-phase model was [0.287, 0.829], which was higher than that obtained from the conventional approach (i.e. [0.130, 0.804]), indicating the advantage of the proposed approach in searching for optimal solutions with high satisfactory level.