Computers Ops Rex. Vol. 24. No. 12, pp.

1141-1149, 1997

Pergamon

PII: S0305--0548(97)00024-5

1997 Elsevier Science Ltd All nghts reserved. Pdntedin Great Britain 0305-0548/97 $17.00+0.00

A FUZZY LINEAR PROGRAMMING

MODEL FOR PRODUCTION

P L A N N I N G IN C O A L M I N E S Parag C. Pendharkartt":l:
Decision Focus Incorporated 650, Castro Street Suite 300, Mountain View, CA 94041, U.S.A.

(Received July 1996; in revisedform April 1997)

Scope and P u r p o s e - - T h e increasing importance of the quality assurance in production planning process poses new demands for mathematical modelling tools tailored to addressquality issues in the coal industry. In this article, a fuzzy linear programming model, incorporating fuzzy measures of quality, is developed to evaluate different production alternatives in the context of the coal industry. The model is applied to a hypothetical coal company. Abstract--This article shows how fuzzy linear programming may be used to solve production .scheduling problem in coal industry. First, a fuzzy linear programming model is presented. The proposed model is then tested on a hypothetical problem developed by using production cost estimates from independent coal mines in the states of Virginia, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The results of the model indicate that the model has potential for solving production scheduling problems in the coal industry. 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd 1. I N T R O D U C T I O N

Coal has been a major source of energy in the US since late 1800s. Recently, the coal industry has been plagued by price fluctuations, and environmental and safety regulations [1 ]. The problem is further amplified by the limited options for the location of coal mines. Coal mine locations are governed by geology. The fixed location of the company and the changing market and environmental regulations are posing problems for the industry profitability. One of the impending problems of the coal mine today is to choose a level of profitability and quality schedule to meet contractual demand as different mines within a coal company contain different coal characteristics determined by its ash, sulfur and BTU content. Since most of the mine contracts, because of environmental regulations, contain specifications for different characteristics of coal, a decision must be made to determine how much to produce and blend from each mine so that overall the customers are satisfied. Traditional research on production scheduling in coal mines focused on development of a sequence of depletion schedules leading from the initial condition of the deposit to the ultimate mine limits [2-6]. The production scheduling problem is characterized by the duration of scheduling period and can be distinguished as long term production scheduling and short term production scheduling problem. Long term production scheduling is concerned with investment planning and is on annual basis. The short term production scheduling, however, includes making decisions such as determining production requirements, equipment availability, inventory requirements, and quality consideration. Previous applications in short term production scheduling ranged from simulation studies [7,8], linear and integer programming studies [9,10,3-5,2,6, I 1-13,8,14] to dynamic programming [ 15-19]. Linear programming and integer programming have received greater attention among the operations research techniques as applied to production scheduling. Most of these models addressed the problem of production sequencing and the mill blending. Practitioners critiqued the models as 'black boxes' as the user of a model was not allowed to interfere in order to set his/her own priorities and adapt the system to his own case [6]. Fuzzy linear programming received very little attention in the literature. The fuzzy linear programming approach becomes important as there is an increasing need for the end-user to set his/her priorities in the model and the linear models, which assume fixed parameters, are likely to ignore some of the solutions that can be acceptable solutions. For example, a thermal power plant specifying the maximum sulfur limit of 0.9% may consider coal with a sulfur limit of 0.91% as acceptable. A typical linear program with a constraint of sulfur limit in coal -<0.9% is likely to ignore this option. In reality, the power plants have
-t"emall: Parag@dfi.com :1:Parag C. Pendharkar is an Associate Consultant at Decision Focus Inc. (DFI) based in Mountian View, California. He received his doctorate in MIS from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. His research interests include distributed artificial intelligence, production scheduling and quality issues in health care and production industries. His work has appeared in the Journal of High Technology Management Research, and various proceedings of national and regional conferences.
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Parag C. Pendharkar

an acceptable level of sulfur limit which may not be a strictly rigid number such as 0.9%. However, high deviations from the acceptable level of quality would result in loss of future contracts. Coal companies obtain the desired level of quality by blending the low quality coal with the high quality coal. Coal washing plants further process coal to bring the coal to the desired quality. A lower rigidity of a power plant on the acceptable level of quality would levy the coal companies of some of the coal processing operations which would translate into lower operating costs. Given the nature of the industry, we argue that there are two fuzzy measures one each from the standpoint of coal company and the power plant respectively. The fuzzy measure for the coal company is the 'acceptable level of profit' i.e., to what level of the profitability should a coal company must consider supplying the coal to the thermal power plant. From the standpoint of the power plants, the fuzzy measure is an 'acceptable level of quality' i.e., to what level of quality of coal should a power plant buy the coal from the coal company. Given the nature of the problem, it becomes necessary for the coal company to maximize profitability and customer satisfaction in terms of acceptable levels of quality. The rest of the article is organized as follows, in Section 2 we provide a brief review of fuzzy sets. In Section 3, we describe our model and equations. Section 4 and Section 5 contain the results of the tested model on the hypothetical mining company and conclusions respectively. 2. REVIEW OF FUZZY PROGRAMMING APPLICATIONS IN OPERATIONS RESEARCH The concept of fuzzy sets was applied to special types of decisions in operations research [20,21]. In this section, we consider a generalized linear programming problem and apply the concept of fuzzy sets. The problem is as follows; Minimize Z=px, subject to Ax~q, x_>0 Here p is vector of coefficients of the objective function, q vector of constants and A is the constraint coefficient matrix. Let Z and q be fuzzy measures that can be represented by membership functions of the fonnf.R '+~---. [0,1]. Given that Z and q are fuzzy measures, the equality and inequality symbols in (1) need not strictly hold. Which means that the fuzzified version of the (1) can be written as follows; Find x such that;

(l)

px<Z
Ax<q x>_0.

(2)

where the symbol ' < ' denotes the fuzzified version of ' < ' and can be read as 'essentially smaller than or equal to'. The fuzzy membership functions of the type f.'R nj--. [0,1] associated with the fuzzy variables Z and q can be defined as; 0, if Ax>kq F(Ax)='

( k q - A x ) if q<Ax<-kq (kq-k) '

1, if Ax-<q

(3)

0, if px>-lZ ~. . ] ( I Z - p x ) . . ~ < <.~ r t p x ) = ~ (l-O-~-ff-~ ' lr L--px--t,'. ( 1, i f p x < Z is satisfied

(4)

where l, k > 1. As l, k - , 1 the fuzziness of the variable Z and q decreases. If F(Ax)#F(px) then we have a bicriteria model. Shi and Liu [21] developed a procedure to solve multiple criteria and multiple constraint (MC 2) problem for identifying fuzzy potential solutions. According to Shi and Liu [21], a fuzzy MC ~ linear program can be split into MC 2 two linear programs. The two linear programs are essentially the same linear program with one linear program solved as a maximum MC 2 problem, and the other solved as a minimum MC 2 problem using MC ~ simplex method

A fuzzy linear programmingmodel

1143

[21]. The solutions generated by solving a maximum MC 2 problem were the upper potential solutions, and solution generated by solving a minimum MC 2 problem were the lower potential solutions. Based on the upper and lower potential solutions, a fuzzy membership function can be constructed for a range of decision parameters. The fuzzy potential solution for the given MC 2 problem is characterized by the membership function and the primal potential basis [21]. Liu and Shi [22] proposed an alternative approach for MC 2 using a fuzzy linear programming approach. The approach adopts the decision maker's goal seeking and compromise behavior based on Zimmermann's fuzzy linear programming approach [20]. The authors develop a fuzzy linear program for solving MC: problem with known weights of constraint level vector. Liu and Shi [221 conclude that fuzzy linear programming approach has an advantage over MC2-simplex method [21] in terms of lower computational effort in solving the problem. In this article, we use an approach similar to that of Liu and Shi [22] and limit our discussion to single criteria models where F(Ax)=F(px). If A denotes the degree to which the fuzzy variables Z and q are acceptable then we can formulate the fuzzified version of (1) as; Maximize A subject to;
A > kq - Ax kq-k l Z - px A>_-IZ- I A<_I x, A>-O

(5)

The following section presents the formulation of the crisp model and the fuzzified model. 3. MODEL DEVELOPMENT The main goals of our model formulation are to determine production output that should be produced by coal mines, and the final quality level of the coal to be delivered to the markets to achieve satisfactory level of quality and profitability. Figure 1 shows the possible relationships that may exist in L mines, M facilities and k consumers/markets. The production output of any of the mines can be shipped to any of the facilities and then in turn to any of the markets. The problem is to select the quantities and quality specification of coal in a given system of market constraints. Tables 1 and 2 describe the notations and variables used in our model. Given the variables, constants, and cost parameters, we construct our objective function to maximize the total discounted net profit before taxes. Mathematically, it can be represented as;

lkrane I

Facility 1

lV~F

Facility g

__'s

Fill. I. The possible relationships between mines, facilities and markets.

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Parag C. Pendharkar
Table I. Subscripts used in the model

Subscripts i j k q t

Definition Coal mine Processing/blending facility Market Quality attribute Time period

Maximize: Z= X (Z,- C,)D, ! Where,

Z,= ~ QAN,~SP,,- E ~ AIQ,,- ~ FC,,- ~ FC,,- ~'i~ Qi,,- ~ ~ Q'.i,flc2j,, i ,

The model must satisfythe followingconstraints;
I. The total production of any coal mine should he less than its maximum production capacity.

x x

e.,- vB,,<-o

2. The total production of any coal mine should be greater than its minimum production capacity.

x x Q,,,- I.B,>0
3. If a market is chosen then the maximum quality constraints must be satisfied.

E ~j Q':,QUij,- QAN,,- QAN,,UBAk, i q<O

4. If all the markets are satisfied then the total supply to the market should be greater than or equal to the total demand.

~ Q',,,- ~ QAN*,>-0
5. If all the markets are satisfied then the amount of output supplied to the facility and the market should be greater than of equal to the market demand.

~ q',,- ~ QAN,,>-0
6. The output supplied from mines to the facility should always greater than output supplied from the facilities to markets.

7. The non-negative constraint for all the variables should be applied. The variables Zt and

UBAk,, are fuzzy variables in our models. Based on our discussion in Section 2 we
Table 2. The list of model variables and constants

Variables/constants

Definition
The discount factor for time t accounting for both inflation and rate of return.

D, St',, C, A, SCI,j,

SC2~, FC,, t:c, QV~, QV,,, e',, O,, Q,~N,, UBAoq ~,,
UB.

Unit selling price of the output delivered to market k in time period t. Cost/ton of ensuring the desired quality in time period t. Unit production cost for the unit i. Shipping cost from unit i to facilityj in time period t. Shipping cost from facility j to market k in time period t. Fixed cost for mine i in time period t. Fixed cost for facility j in time period t Quality of attribute q of coal desired by market k from facility k in time period t. Quality of attribute q of coal from mine i shipped to facilityj. Quantity of coal shipped from market facilityj to market k. Quantity of outlet supplied from unit i to facilityj in time period t. Quantity of production r~luimmem for market k in time period t. Upper quality bound for attribute q for market k in time period t. Lower p t ~ u c t i o n bound for mine i in time period t. Upper production bound for mine in time period t.

A fuzzy linear programmingmodel operationalize the fuzzy linear membership functions for these variables as the following:
0, if y-<Z (IZ-y) ~ ( y ) =, ( I Z - 1) 1. if y > 1Z is satisfied

1145

(6)

0, if x>-kUBAkq, (kUBAkq, - x) ~*wA(x)=' (kUBA~q, - k) 1, if x <-UBAkq, The fuzzified version of the model now is: Maximize A~+A_, subject to;

(7)

IZ-y IZ-I kUBAkq , - x A:-----kUBA~,q,-k Y-, ~. Q,j,- U & , - U&,<-O i j E E Q,j,-UB.-LB.>--O

i j

(8) (9) (10) (ll) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17)

o',,,-

eaN ,>-o OAN,,>-O

Q jk,-O

Oil,.

,>

Ai, Az--<l Ai, a2, SPk,, A~, SCIo,, SC2jk ,, FC~,, FCj,, QUoq,, Q".,k,, Qo,, QANk,, UBAk,,, LBu, UB,,>-O /, k-->l

where, A~, Az are fuzzy membership functions of profit and quality. The fuzzy membership functions of profit and quality are related as quality assurance results in lower profits to the company. Considering a linear relationship, we can write A~ as follows; Aj =a A2+b a and b are real numbers. Considering a = 1 and b =0 we have a single criteria model where &= A2= a. Maximize A subject to; a<

1Z-y IZ- 1

(18)

A >- kUBA~, - x kUBAko,- k

(10)-(16) and (17).
4. MODEL TESTING AND RESULTS ONA HYPOTHETICAL PROBLEM

(19)

For developing a hypothetical model, estimates were obtained from three independent coal mines one each from three different states of Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. All the three states are major coal producing states in the US. The production cost averaged from about $24/ton in Pennsylvania to $20/ton

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Parag C. Pendharkar
Table 3. The hypothetical mining company data Mine data Mine I 700,000 100,000 35 0.00 0.9 Mine 2 600,000 100,000 40 0.00 1.4

Maximum production (tons) Minimum production (tons) Production and transportation cost (S/ton) Fixed cost Sulfur content

in Illinois and Virginia. The cost of transportation depended on the transportation mode. Typically, for railroads the transportation cost varied from $19/ton to $17/ton, for trucks the cost was about $13/ton. The estimates for river barge transportation were expected to be lower than that for railroads. The estimates for conveyors were lower to about $1.5/ton-$3/ton. The use of conveyors, however, requires a little crushing and screening overhead which is usually unlikely. Thermal power plants constitute the typical markets for coal and these plants impose heavy restriction on the amount of sulfur content in the coal. According to the recent clean air act, the power plants have to restrict the SOz emission below 2.5 lb/btu. This limit translates to the percentage sulfur limit in coal to about 1.1%. Based on the above information, we consider a problem which consists of two coal mines, one facility and a market. Tables 3 and 4 describes the data for each one of the individual units. We solve the model using a LP module of an optimization package. Total cost to ensure the quality is calculated as follows;

We first solve the model with known set of values of k and study the solutions with varying the values of k. We then relax our assumption of prior knowledge of k and suggest an algorithm where problem can be solved when value of k is not previously known. Under the prior knowledge of k assumption, an individual market's perception regarding the acceptable quality can be characterized from high rigidity to low rigidity with values of k e [1.1, 1.15, 1.2, 1.25]. The value of l= 1 was set to ensure high rigidity of profit with the expected level of ideal profit of $ 7,500,000. Table 5 illustrates the results of our model for different values of k. The production levels of mine 1 and mine 2 were constant across all levels of k and were 300,000 tons and 600,000 tons respectively. The low rigidity of acceptable level of quality results in different values of profits caused by lower costs of quality assurance. The satisfaction levels of the company and the market show marginal differences across different levels of rigidity. Figure 2 illustrates the graph between fuzzy satisfaction index (FSI) F and k. From the graph it can be seen that as k increases from 1.1 to 1.25 the satisfaction levels for the coal company and the market drop. The drop, however, is less significant for the increase in value o f k from 1.1 to 1.15 than for any other subsequent increases. Figure 3 illustrates actual delivered quality satisfaction index (ADQSI) Q= 1.1/
Table 4. The market data Market data Market I 900.000 $3.5/ton 1.0 1.1 1.1 42.00

Demand in tons C 1 k Maximum sulfur in % Selling price (S/ton)

Table 5. Olximum membership values, quality levels net profits, and marginal values under four diffen~nt scenarios Value of k I. 10 I. ] 5 1.20 1.25 Membership value 0.590 0.587 0.577 0.566 Quality level (%) 1.14 I. 17 I. ] 9 1.21 Net profit ($) 3,006,000 3,100,500 3,] 63,500 3,258,000 Marginal values 0.440 0.450 0.463 0,475

A fuzzy linear p r o g r a m m i n g m o d e l 0.590

F u z z y Satisfaction Index

1147

0.585 0.580 0.575 F 0.570

0.565 0.560 -0.555 - 0.550 1.10

I
1.15

I
1.20

I
1.25

Fig. 2. Plot of fuzzy satisfaction index (membership value) F vs k.

quality. The ADQSI is 1 if the delivered quality is equal to h 1. However, for k = 1.1 the delivered quality is 1.14 which means that in reality our customer is not 100% satisfied. The slope for the drop of ADQSI is higher for increases in value o f k from 1.1 to 1.15 than for any other subsequent increases. Figure 4 illustrates the profits for increasing values of k. Comparing Figs 2--4 we can see that slope of increase in profits is higher for increase in value o f k from 1.1 to 1.15. FSI slope for the increase in the value of k from 1.1 to 1.15 is lower compared with other increment ranges. Thus, it can be concluded that for most part changing the value of k from 1.1 to 1.15 will not bring a significant difference in the satisfaction level of customer as far as quality is concerned. But, profits can be increased by $94,500. In most cases, a company may not have an option to select the value of k. In such cases there is a need to determine the value of k. We suggest the following marginal value (shadow price) based quality assurance algorithm (MVQAA) for managing quality commitments: Start: t--0, k = l . l Find ~0

Begin: k=k+Ak
t=t+l Find ~:~,, If l ~ - .~1<8 Then Begin Else k = k - Ak Stop. Where ~:is the marginal value, 8 is the similarity measure and Ak is the small increments in the value of k. The MVQAA allows a company to vary k to the extent so that there is no difference in the marginal
0.98 0.96

0.94 0.92

0.90

o.88
I.I0

I
1.15

I
1.20

I
1.25

Fig. 3. Plot of actual delivered quality satisfaction index vs k.

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Parag C. Pendharkar
Profits

3250000

3200000

3150000

3100000

3050000

3000000

2950000

2900000

2850000 1.10 1.15 1.20 1.25

Fig. 4. I m p a c t on profit w i t h i n c r e a s e in k.

values based on the similarity based measure 8. In our problem, marginal value determines the impact on fuzzy membership function with an increase in quality of sulfur by 1%. The similarity measure is a threshold to determine a significant change in fuzzy membership function after increasing the value of k by Ak. The threshold limit can be set based on the standard error in the estimation of quality (see appendix for further discussion). In our case, we set 8=0.01 and solve for the final value of k which is 1.15.
5. CONCLUSIONSANDFUTUREWORK

We have presented and tested a generalized fuzzy linear programming model for production scheduling in coal mines. Our model can be used to solve both very simple to very complex problems which might be dynamic in nature. The model has potential for solving decision making problems in the coal mining industry. Multiple quality attributes such as limits on ash content in the coal and moisture content in the coal can also be considered and values of k can be solved using a similar fuzzy linear program. The current fuzzy linear programming model offers the decision maker some flexibility to incorporate his/her own priority in the model (in terms of k). One possible extension of the current model is to consider non-linear objective function. Non-linear programming (NLP) has advantages over linear programming (LP) as NLP considers certain factors such as 'economies of scale' and 'economies of scope' which LP tends to ignore. LP considers cost as a linear estimate which is independent of production volume (economies of scale). The Cost estimates in NLP, however, are dependent on the production volume. For example, production cost may decrease with increase in production volume. Considering non-linearities of cost functions we may have a non-linear objective function and non-linear constraints. If the fuzzy non-linear function is concave and all of our constraints are convex then it can be shown that applying Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions or using geometric programming solution procedures would give the optimal solution [23]. However, if the objective function is convex and any one of the constraints is concave then traditional gradient search based procedures may not necessarily warranty optimal solution. In such as case, whenever arises, genetic search procedures should be used to solve the problem. Recently, genetic algorithms (GAs) were used successfully for solving non-linear programming and NP-Hard optimization problems [24]. GAs for optimization are interior point parallel search procedures that use 'survival of the fittest' principle to solve a optimization problem. The use of non-linear programming may require research in development of a new algorithm for dynamically determining the value ofk. Most of the NLP solution procedures don't solve for the marginal

A fuzzy linear programming model

1149

values of the resources. In the absence of the marginal values, one approach can be to use objective function values in the current MVQAA instead of marginal values. A stream of future research can also focus on constructing statistical control charts for monitoring fuzzy quality. For example, given the standard error in measurement of quality, a control chart can be constructed with a process mean of Ao and upper and lower quality limits of Ao - 8 and Ao+ 8.

Acknowledgements--The author thanks the referees for providing extremely valuable comments and identifying relevant
literature.

REFERENCES 1. Bernardo, J. J. and Gillenwater, E., Sequencing rules for productivity improvements in underground coal mining. Decision Sciences, 1991, 22, 3 620-634. 2. Gangwar, A. Using geostatistical ore block variances in production planning by integer programming. 17th Int. Syrup. on Application of Computers and Operations Research in the Mineral Industry, Colorado School of Mines, 1982, pp. 443--460. 3. Williams, C. E. Computerized year by year open pit mine scheduling. Society of Mining Engineers of A.LM.E. Transactions, 1974, 309-317. 4. Sims, D. E., Open pit long range mine planning using O.R.E. computer methods for the 80s in the mineral industry. Society of Mining Engineers of A.LM.E. Transactions, 1979, 359--370. 5. Davis. R. E. and Williams, C. E. Optimization procedures for open pit mines scheduling, Ilth Int. Syrup. on Application of Computers in the Mineral Industries, University of AHzona, Tucson, Arizona, CI--CI8, 1973. 6. Gerson, M. E. A linear programming approach to mine scheduling optimization. In Proc. 17th Int. Syrup. on Application of Computers and Operations Research in the Mineral Industry. Colorado School of Mines, 1982, pp. 483.--493. 7. Pana, M. T. The simulation approach to open pit design. In Proc. of 5th Int. Syrup. on Computer Applications in the Mineral Industry. Tuscon, Arizona, 1965, pp. ZZI-ZZ24. 8. Decker~ J., Garg, O. and Setele, J. Production planning systems at the hanna mining company. Socie~. of Mining Engineer~, Preprint No. 84-372 1984. 9. Kim. Y. C.. Mathematical programming analysis of mine planning problems. Ph.D. thesis, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 1967. 10. Johnson, T. B., Optimum open pit mine production scheduling. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1969. I 1. Elbrond, J., Dubois, J. and Daoust, G. Rate of production and cutoff grade--a program for teaching and experimentation. Proc. 15th Int. Syrup. on Application of Computers and Operations Research in the Mineral Industry, Brisbane, Australia, 1977, pp. 13-19. 12. Barbaro, R. W. and Ramani, R. V., Generalized multi-period MIP model for production scheduling and processing facilities selection and location. Mining Engineering, 1986, 38, 2 107-114. 13. Kim, Y. C. and Kai, W. L., Long range mine sequencing with 0-1 programming. In Proc. of the 22nd Int. APCOM, Vol. I. Berlin, Germany, 1990, pp. 131-145. 14. Pendharkar, P. C. and Rodger, J. A., A generalized multiple period mathematical model to solve company-dealer-market production scheduling and inventory problems in a production industry. Proc. of the Mid West Decision Sciences Institute, 1994. 15. Lizotte, Y. and Elbrond, J., Choice of mine-mill capacities and production schedules using open-ended dynamic programming. CIM Bulletin, 1982, 75, 839 154--163. 16. Roman, R. J., The use of dynamic programming for determining mine-mill production schedules. In Proc. of lOth Int. Syrup. on Application of Computer Methods in the Mineral Industry, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1973, pp. 165-169. 17. Dowd, P., Application of dynamic and stochastic programming to optimize cutoff grades and production rates. Transactions of Institute Mining and Metalllurgy Section A, (Mining Industry), 1976, 85, A22-A31. 18. Yun, Q. and Yegulalp, T., Optimum scheduling of overburden removal in open pit mines. CIM Bulletin, 1982, 75,848 80--83. 19. Ramani, R. V., Mathematical programming applications in the crushed stone industry. Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 1970. 20. Zimmerman, H. J., Using fuzzy sets in OR. European Journal of Operational Research, 1983, 13, 338-353. 21. Shi, Y. and Liu, Y.-H., Fuzzy potential solutions in multicriteria and multiconstraint level linear programming problems. Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 1993, 60, 163-179. 22. Liu, Y.-H. and Shi, Y., A fuzzy programming approach for solving a multiple criteria and multiple constraint level linear programming problem. Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 1994, 65, I 17-124. 23. Hiller, F. S. and Lieberman, G. J., Introduction to Operations Research. McGraw-Hill, 1995. 24. Michalewicz. Z., Genetic Algorithms + Data Structures = Evolution Programs. Springer-Verlag, 1994. 25. Zadeh, L. A., Fuzzey sets. Information and Control, 1965, 8, 338--353.
APPENDIX

In measuring sulfur quality in coal. standard errors of 0.001% are normal [4]. In our case, for UBA,=0. I and k~=1 it can be shown from (19) that the standard error of 0.001% in measuring the quality translate into standard error of 0.01 in measuring fuzzy membership function. Thus, considering errors in estimating quality, we can consider fuzzy memberships Ao==A,iflA0- A,l-<0.01. If E~ and ~, are marginal values of same linear program with same constraints solved under different values of resources, and A~j and ,~, are the optimal objective function values of the linear program solved under two different resources then given A0> ~.,>0 we have;Theorem/: I~ - ~l<0.01 always implies that IAo- A~<0.01 .Proof. By definition of marginal values, a marginal value has to be always less than or equal to the optimal value of the objective function. This means ~'Ao and ~,<:A,. Now, subtracting ~, from we have. ~ , - ~,"~Ao- A,. Given that ~>A, and same constraint and objective function we have by definition ~ > ~ . This means that I~ - ,~,l<lA, - A,l. This concludes the proof.