An Interactive Optimization Approach to Multiple Response Surface Problems

A common problem encountered in product or process design is the selection of optimal parameters that involves simultaneous consideration of multiple response characteristics, called a multiple response surface problem. There are several approaches proposed for multiple response surface optimization (MRO), including the desirability function approach and the loss function approach. The existing MRO approaches require that all the preference information of the decision maker be extracted prior to solving the problem. However, the prior preference articulation is difficult to implement in practice. This paper proposes to use an interactive optimization approach to the MRO problem to overcome the common limitations of the existing approaches. In particular, we demonstrate the use of the Step method, one of the well-known interactive optimization methods in the multiple objective optimization literature, in solving an MRO problem.