Slide 1
Transportation Technique
Introduction
Nature of Transportation Problem
A transportation problem is a special type of linear programming problem and
typically involves situations where goods are required to be transferred from
some sources or plants to some destinations or markets at a minimum cost.
Although such problems can be formulated and solved as linear programming
problems, obtaining such solution is very inefficient because of large
computational effort involved in that.
In a typical transportation problem, A matrix is given where sources are given
row wise, destinations are indicated column-wise and unit cost of
transportation from each source to each destination is provided. Also
indicated is the supply at each source and demand at every market.
Slide 2
Transportation Technique
Introduction (Continued)
Objective Function
The objective of the Transportation Model is to minimize the transportation
Cost in an application of Logistics or distribution of goods or product from
different sources within the constraints of the respective capacities to
different destinations within the constraints of the respective demands
Balanced and Unbalanced Problems
If total demand is equal to total supply, the problem is called balanced
transportation problem and if the two do not match, it is called
unbalanced.
Slide 3
Transportation Technique
Nature of the Problem
The following example explains the nature of the Transportation Problem:
• A fertilizer company has 3 units located in three different locations. The company
has to cater to markets in eastern, western, southern and northern region. Cost
of transportation per ton of fertilizer from specific factories to particular markets
was compiled first. Capacities of various factories and requirements from
different markets were duly estimated. These are given in the table below:
• ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Location Transportation Cost (Rs.) Supplies
• of factory (Per ton to marketing region) (capacities)
• North South East West tons
• ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• F1 410 395 400 435 90
• F2 460 305 380 345 100
• F3 300 375 455 405 50
• ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Demand 60 50 85 45 240
• tons
• ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Determine the optimum schedule of shipment for the transportation problem (i.e.
how many tons of Fertilizer should be transported from which factory to which
Slide 4
Assignment Technique
Introduction
An assignment problem is a special class of linear programming problem.
The objective of an assignment problem is to determine the optimal
assignment of given tasks to a set of workers that they can perform with
varying efficiency, in terms of time taken, cost, amount of sales and so on.
Thus, if there are n tasks to perform and an equal number of persons who
can do them, in varying times which are known, the algorithm seeks to
assign the jobs to persons in such a manner that each person gets one
job and the total time in which all jobs can be done is the minimum. The
algorithm works in varied situations wherein pairings are sought to be
made.
Slide 5
Assignment Technique
Objective Function: Optimum Assignment (or Allocation) of Jobs to Facilities
Example :
Six contractors submitted quotation for six projects. It was decided that
one contractor should be given one project as otherwise it was feared
that the time for completion & quality of workmanship will be affected.
The estimates given by each of them on all the contracts in thousands
of rupees are given below:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contractor Quotation for project (Rs. in thousands)
I II III IV V VI
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A 41 72 39 52 25 51
B 22 29 49 65 81 50
C 27 39 60 51 32 32
D 45 50 48 52 37 43
E 29 40 39 26 30 33
F 82 40 40 60 51 30
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Determine the optimum allocation of projects to the contractors and the
corresponding total cost.
Slide 6
Assignment Technique
Introduction (continued)
Assignment problems can be solved by :
1. Completely enumerating all possibilities and
choosing the best one.
2. Drafting and solving the problem as a linear
(integer) programming problem.
3. Drafting and solving the problem as a
transportation problem.
4. Hungarian assignment method (HAM).
