MELiSSA

Multiobjective Evolutionary Linear Shelf Space Allocation

The problem of allocating space to a particular product in a shop is typically mapped to that of deciding which combination of products will yield the maximum profit. In general, the most commonly employed methods try and measure the impact on the customer of the relationship between allocated space and. The aim is to find the allocation of space that maximises the profit.

In a real commercial environment the maximisation of the profit and the actual allocation of products to shelves are solved at different levels. At the management level the optimal (in terms of higher profit) lengths of shelves to allocate to each product are determined. These are called category standards and the set of category standards that configures a shop is termed the standard shop. At the shop level, the shop planners must take this “ideal” shop configuration (in practice a list of items and lengths of shelves) and transform it into an allocation of shelves to items, in effect adapting the standard shop to the actual space available, given a number of other business constraints. The problem shop planners face is the lack of suitable tools to perform this task, which means that in general the allocation is done by hand.

The MELiSSA tool aims to cover this niche.

MELiSSA allocates products in a supermarket in an optimal manner, following the business rules and constraints, and it quickly presents a number of options that the end user (the shop planner) can choose from. 

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