LINEAR PROGRAMMING GRAPHICAL METHODS

Presented by:Ishant Soni Chitranshu Khare

Linear Programming
Linear programming (LP) is a mathematical technique designed to help managers in their planning and decision making. It is usually used in an organization that is trying to make most effective use of its resources. Resources typically include machinery, manpower, money, time, warehouse space, or raw materials. Linear Programming is a powerful mathematical tool used by decision makers, mostly operations, to obtain optimal solutions to the problems that involve limited resources managers, labour and machine time.

Formulating Linear Programming Problems

A very common linear programming problem is the product mix problem. Two or more products are usually formed using limited resources, such as personnel and machines. The profit, which the firm seeks to maximize, is base on the profit contribution per unit of each product. The company would like to determine how many units of each product they should produce so as to maximize overall profit given their limited resources.

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It is possible for a problem to have many more variables, or products. It is also possible to have more than two constraints in even a simple LP problem. Constraints may involve not only less than or equal to () inequalities, but actual equalities (=) and greater than or equal to () inequalities as well.

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF CONSTRAINTS

In order to determine the optimal solution to a linear programming problem, we must first identify a set, or region, of feasible solutions. When there are only two variables in the problem, as in the examples and problems above, this can be accomplished by plotting the constraints on a two-dimensional graph. The variable X1 is usually treated as the horizontal axis and the variable X2 as the vertical axis. Because of the non negativity constraints (i.e., X1 0, X2 0), we are always working in the first (or northeast) quadrant of the graph. The graphical method of dealing with LP problems is best demonstrated by way of an example.

Graphical solution procedure for maximization problems:

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Prepare a graph of feasible solutions for every addition of constraints. Determine the feasible region that satisfies all the constraints simultaneously. Draw an objective function line by giving some values to the objective function.

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4. Move parallel objective function lines towards larger objective function values without entirely leaving the feasible region. 5. Any feasible solution on the objective function line with the best value is an optimal solution. 6. Find the objective function values at corner points/extreme points and choose the corner point/extreme point with the maximum value. This method will fail if the feasible solution is unbounded.

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