Conjoint Optimization: An Exact Branch-and-Bound Algorithm for the Share-of-Choice Problem
Jeffrey D. Camm, James J. Cochran, David J. Curry, Sriram Kannan
Management Science · 2006 · Volume 52 · Issue 3
Abstract
Conjoint analysis is a statistical technique used to elicit partworth utilities for product attributes from consumers to aid in the evaluation of market potential for new products. The objective of the share-of-choice problem (a common approach to new product design) is to find the design that maximizes the number of respondents for whom the new product’s utility exceeds a specific hurdle (reservation utility). We present an exact branch-and-bound algorithm to solve the share-of-choice problem. Our empirical results, based on several large commercial data sets and simulated data from a controlled experiment, suggest that the approach is useful for finding provably optimal solutions to realistically sized problems, including cases where partworths contain estimation error.
Keywords
integer programming, combinatorial optimization, product design, marketing, conjoint analysis, optimization
Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.