SOME CONSIDERATIONS OF A CLASS OF MULTISTAGE ALLOCATION PROBLEMS

Abstract

Some multistage allocation problems which appear in several engineering fields are mathematically identical and reduced to a class of problems. In consequence of this generalization the nature of these design problems is examined comprehensively. The similarity common to this variety of problems and the difference between them are discussed.
The objective function appearing in this class of design problems sometimes has multimodality. A sufficient condition for a unique optimum point of the objective function is derived for an arbitrary number of stages. Finally, a sufficient condition for local optimality of a stationary point is given.