Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal

, Volume 25, Issue 3, pp 443–461 | Cite as

Optimal design of fair layouts

  • Albert E. Fernandes Muritiba
  • Manuel Iori
  • Silvano Martello
  • Marcos J. Negreiros Gomes
Article
First Online:

Abstract

A relevant logistic issue in the organization of a fair is to determine how stands have to be placed in the exhibition space so as to satisfy all constraints on security, ease of access, services, and so on, while maximizing the revenues coming from the exhibitors. We consider in particular the problem of allocating the maximum number of stands by satisfying all the constraints required by practical implementations. We examine a number of real-world cases, and show how basic mathematical programming models can be improved to handle specific requests from the organizers. We report the solutions obtained through an original decision support system, that embeds a number of algorithms to solve the various cases by reduction to one or more linear programs.

Keywords

Design of service systems Fair management Layout optimization Mathematical modeling Optimization algorithms 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank the GRAPHVS CONS. COM & REP. LTDA, the Universidade Estadual do Ceará, Fortaleza (Brazil), and the Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (Italy). We also thank the ALFA PROJECT, under grant II-0457-FA-FCD-F1-FC. Their support is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are due to Ana Mércia (Municipality Environmental Manager), Sérgio Pinheiro (Fortaleza Tourism Municipality Secretary) and Francisco Carlos Simões (President of the Beira Mar Fair Association, ASFABEM) for their kind support during the execution of the tests on the Fortaleza fair. Thanks are due to Valter Franceschini (President of the Fiere di Reggio Emilia), Manuela Maccagnani and Lisa Bianchini, for their help during the execution of the tests on the Reggio Emilia case study. We finally thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments that considerably improved the presentation.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  • Albert E. Fernandes Muritiba
    • 1
  • Manuel Iori
    • 2
  • Silvano Martello
    • 3
  • Marcos J. Negreiros Gomes
    • 4
  1. 1.Federal University of CearáFortalezaBrazil
  2. 2.DISMIUniversity of Modena and Reggio EmiliaReggio EmiliaItaly
  3. 3.DEISUniversity of BolognaBolognaItaly
  4. 4.State University of CearáFortalezaBrazil

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