Solving Optimal Pricing Model for Perishable Commodities with Imperialist Competitive Algorithm

摘要

The pricing problem for perishable commodities is important in manufacturing enterprise. In this study, a new model based on the profit maximization principle and a discrete demand function which is a negative binomial demand distribution is proposed. This model is used to find out the best combination for price and discount price. The computational results show that the optimal discount price equals the cost of the product. Because the demand functions which involves several different distributions is so complex that the model is hard to solve with normal numerical method. Thus we combine the model with exterior penalty function and applied a novel evolution algorithm-Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) to solve the problem. Particle Swarm algorithm (PSO) is also applied to solve the problem for comparison. The result shows that ICA has higher convergence rate and execution speed.