Transportation Problems

Q1 Find initial basic feasible solution using VAM for the following transportation
problem.
Distribution Centre
A B C D Supply
1 2 3 11 7 6
Plant 2 1 0 6 1 1
3 5 8 15 9 10
Demand 7 5 3 2

Q2 For the following data, the cost of shipment from third source to third destination is
not known. How many units should be transported from sources to destinations so that
the total transportation cost of all the units to their destinations is a minimum & what
is the optimum transportation schedule.
Destinations
1 2 3 Supply
1 2 2 3 10
Sources 2 4 1 2 15
3 1 3 * 40
Demand 20 15 30

Q3 A product is produced by four factories A, B, C & D. The unit production costs in

them are Rs. 2, Rs. 3, Re.1 and Rs. 5 respectively. Their production capacities are,
Factory A- 50units, B-70units,C-30units and D-50 units. These factories supply product
to 4 stores, Demand of which are 25, 35, 105 and 20 units respectively. Unit
transportation cost in Rs. From each factory to each store is given in table.
1 2 3 4
A 2 4 6 11
B 10 8 7 5
C 13 3 9 12
D 4 6 8 3
Determine the extent of deliveries from each of the factories to each of the stores so that
the total production and transportation cost is minimum. (unbalanced tp)

Q4 Find the initial feasible solution to the following Transportation problems using North
West Corner rule, Least Cost method, Vogel Approximation Method (VAM)

1) To Supply

3 4 6 8 9 20
From 2 10 1 5 8 30
Demand 7 11 20 40 3 15
40 2 1 9 14 16 13
6 8 18 6
2) To Supply

5 2 4 3 22
From 4 8 1 6 15
Demand 4 6 7 5 8
7 12 17 9

3)
To Supply

3 8 5 5
From 5 5 3 8
Demand 7 6 9 7
7 9 18 4 9 5 14

Q5 Maximize the profit in the following TP.

Destinations
1 2 3 4 Supply
A 42 27 24 35 200
B 46 37 32 32 60
C 80 40 120 60 140
Demand 80 40 120 60

Q6 TP with restrictions
Page 207 (Hira Gupta) Q27
Q7 TP with degeneracy
The Cost of shipping one unit of commodity from warehouse i to store j in Rs. is
given below
Stores Supply

9 12 9 6 9 10 5
7 3 7 7 5 5 6
6 5 9 11 3 11 2
6 8 11 2 2 10 9
1
Ware 2
House 3
4

Demand 4 4 6 2 4 2

Find the optimum transportation schedule.

Q8 Find the basic feasible solution using North-West corner rule and then the
optimal transportation plan.

4 3 1 2 6 80
From 5 2 3 4 5 60
Demand 3 5 6 3 2 40
60 2 4 4 5 3 20
60 30 40 10

Q9 A company manufactures air coolers has two plants at Mumbai and Calcutta
with a capacity of 200units and 100 units per week respectively. The company
supplies the air coolers to its four showrooms situated at Ranchi, Delhi, Lacknow,
And Kanpur which has a maximum demand of 75,100,100 &30 units respectively.
Due to the difference in raw material cost and transportation cost, the profit per
unit in Rs. differs as given below.
Ranchi Delhi Lacknow Kanpur

Mumbai 90 90 100 110

Calcutta 50 70 130 85

Find the production programme so as to maximize the profit.

Q10 XYZ interprise has three factories at locations A, B and C which supplies three
warehouses at D, E and F. Monthly capacities are 10. 80 and 15 units respectively.
Monthly warehouse requirements are 75, 20 and 50 units respectively.
Unit shipping costs in Rs. are given below.

Warehouse
D E F
A 5 1 7
Factories B 6 4 6
C 3 2 5
Determine the optimal solution and cost using Vogels approximation method.
 Assignment Model

The assignment problem is a special type of allocation problem. In both cases the
objective is to fulfill the targets by means of available resources which are available
in specified amounts. But the operating conditions are different.
Assignment problem is a completely degenerate form of a transportation problem.

The problem is to assign one facility to one and only one job so that the measure
of effectiveness is optimized. Such problem can berepresented by n×n matrix which
constitute n ‫ ٳ‬ways of making assignments.

Mathematical representation of assignment model

n n
Minimize Z = ∑ ∑ Cij X ij
j i
n
Subject to constraints ∑ X ij =1 (i= 1, 2, 3……., n)
j=1
n
∑ X ij =1 (j= 1, 2, 3……., n)
i=1

and X ij = 0 or 1.

Transportation technique cannot be used to solve this model because of degeneracy,

as in assignment model row and column requirements are satisfied simultaneously.
Hence a special technique used to solve assignment problem known as Hungarian
Method or reduced matrix method.

Example Facilities
1 2 3 4
15 13 14 17 J1
11 12 15 13 Job J2
13 12 10 11 J3
15 17 14 16 J4

Step 1. Prepare a square matrix.

In this case it’s a square matrix hence nothing to be done in this step.

Step 2. Reduce the matrix.

Subtract the minimum element of each row from all the elements of that row.
See if there is at least one zero in each row and column. If so stop, if not subtract the
minimum element of each column from all the elements of that column.
1 2 3 4
2 0 1 3 J1
0 1 4 1 Job J2
3 2 0 0 J3
1 3 0 1 J4

Step 3. Draw minimum number of lines covering all the 0’s. If number of lines is
less than n then go to next step else make the assignments, which will give the
optimal solution. (In this case matrix is of order n and no of lines is also n hence
assignments are made.)

1 2 3 4
2 1 3
o J1

o 1 4 1 Job J2
3 2 0
0 J3
1 3 1
0 J4

Step 4. Select the minimum of uncovered elements and subtract it from each of the
uncovered elements and add it at the intersection of the lines. A new reduced matrix
is obtained. Go to step 3 and proceed till optimal solution is obtained.

Q2 a) Four different jobs can be done on 4 different machines. The set up and take
down time costs are assumed to be prohibitively high for changeovers. The matrix
below gives the cost in Rs. of producing jobs i on machine j. How should the job be
assigned to the various machines so that the total cost is minimized?
1 2 3 4
5 7 11 6 J1
8 5 9 6 Job J2
4 7 10 7 J3
10 4 8 3 J4

b) Solve the following assignment problem for minimization.

__________ Job ___________
 1 2 3 4 5
A 10 3 3 2 8
B 9 7 8 2 7
Machinist C 7 5 6 2 4
D 3 5 8 2 4
E 9 10 9 6 10

Q3 Non –Square matrix

A company has a surplus truck in each of the cities A, B, C, D & E and one of
the deficit truck in each of the cities 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6. The distance in Km is shown in
matrix below. Find the assignment of trucks from cities in surplus to cities in deficit
so that the total distance covered by vehicles is minimum.

1 2 3 4 5 6

A 12 10 15 22 18 8
B 10 18 25 15 16 12
C 11 10 3 8 5 9
D 6 14 10 13 13 12
E 8 12 11 7 13 10

Add a dummy Row(with 0 cost) in this case to make the square matrix.
And solve with Hungarian method.

Q4 Maximization Problem
A department has 4 subordinates & four tasks to be performed. The
subordinates differ in efficiency and tasks differ in their intrinsic difficulty. The
estimate of profit in Rs. Each man would earn is given in the effectiveness matrix.
How should the task be allocated , one to each man, so as to maximize the total
earnings?
task
1 2 3 4

5 40 20 5 1
25 35 30 25 subordinate 2
15 25 20 10 3
15 5 30 15 4

Q 5 Assignment problem with restrictions

1) Four new machines M1, M2, M3, and M4 are to be installed in a machine
 shop There are 5 vacant places A, B, C, D and E available. Because of limited
space, machine M2 can not be placed at C and M3 cannot be placed at A.
Cost in the matrix below are given in Rs.

A B C D E
4. 6 10 5 6 M1
7 4. - 5 4 M2
- 6 9 6 2. M3
9 3 7 2. 3 M4

2) Machine
operato M1 M2 M3 M4 M5
r
A 7 7 - 4 8
B 9 6 4 5 6
C 11 5 7 - 5
D 9 4 8 9 4
E 8 7 9 11 3
Q 6 A captain of cricket team
has to allot five middle batting positions to five
Batsmen. The average runs scores by each batsman at those positions are
as follows:

Batting positions
batsman 3 4 5 6 7
A 40 40 35 25 50
B 42 30 16 25 27
C 50 48 40 60 50
D 20 19 20 18 25
E 58 60 59 55 53
Make the assignments so that the expected total average runs scored by these
batsmen are maximum.

Traveling Salesmen Problem

A salesman wants to visit cities A, B, C, D and E. He does not want to visit any city
twice before completing his tour of all the cities and wishes to return to the starting
point. Cost of going from one city to another (in Rs.) is shown in table below. Find
the least cost route

A B C D E
A 0 2 5 7 1
B 6 0 3 8 2
 C 8 7 0 4 7
D 12 4 6 0 5
E 1 3 2 8 0
First solve it by Hungarian method putting cost = infinity at diagonals as shown
below.

A B C D E
A ∞ 1 3 6 0
B 4 ∞ 0 6 0
C 4 37 ∞ 0 3
D 8 0 1 ∞ 1
E 0 2 0 7 ∞