Transportation and Assignment Problems

Example: BBC
Building Brick Company (BBC) has orders for 80 tons of bricks at three suburban locations as follows: Northwood -- 25 tons, Westwood -- 45 tons, and Eastwood -- 10 tons. BBC has two plants, each of which can produce 50 tons per week. Delivery cost per ton from each plant to each suburban location is shown below:
Delivery Cost Per Ton Northwood Westwood 24 30 30 40

Plant 1 Plant 2

Eastwood 40 42

How should end of week shipments be made to fill the above orders?

Transportation Problem
Network Representation
s1 1 c11 c13 c21 2 c23 c12 2 c22 1

d1

d2

s2

d3

SOURCES

DESTINATIONS

Transportation Problem
LP Formulation The LP formulation in terms of the amounts shipped from the origins to the destinations, xij , can be written as: Min cijxij ij s.t. xij < si j for each origin i

xij = dj i
xij > 0

for each destination j

for all i and j

Transportation Problem
LP Formulation Special Cases The following special-case modifications to the linear programming formulation can be made:
Minimum shipping guarantee from i to j: xij > Lij Maximum route capacity from i to j: xij < Lij Unacceptable route: Remove the corresponding decision variable.

Assignment Problem
An assignment problem seeks to minimize the total cost assignment of m workers to m jobs, given that the cost of worker i performing job j is cij. It assumes all workers are assigned and each job is performed. An assignment problem is a special case of a transportation problem in which all supplies and all demands are equal to 1; hence assignment problems may be solved as linear programs. The network representation of an assignment problem with three workers and three jobs is shown on the next slide.

Assignment Problem
Network Representation
1
AGENTS

c11

c13 c21

c12

1
TASKS

c22

c23

c31
3

c32

c33

Assignment Problem
LP Formulation Min cijxij
ij

s.t. xij = 1
j

for each agent i

for each task j

xij = 1
i

xij = 0 or 1 for all i and j

Assignment Problem
LP Formulation Special Cases Number of agents exceeds the number of tasks:

xij < 1 for each agent i

j

Number of tasks exceeds the number of agents: Add enough dummy agents to equalize the number of agents and the number of tasks. The objective function coefficients for these new variable would be zero.

Example: Contractor
A contractor pays his subcontractors a fixed fee plus mileage for work performed. On a given day the contractor is faced with three electrical jobs associated with various projects. Given below are the distances between the subcontractors and the projects. Subcontractor Westside Federated Goliath Universal Projects A B C 50 36 16 28 30 18 35 32 20 25 25 14

How should the contractors be assigned to minimize total costs?

Network Representation
West.

50 36 16 28 30 32

A Projects B

Subcontractors
Fed.

18 35
Gol.

20 25
14

C
25

Univ.

Linear Programming Formulation

Min 50x11+36x12+16x13+28x21+30x22+18x23 +35x31+32x32+20x33+25x41+25x42+14x43 x11+x12+x13 < 1 x21+x22+x23 < 1 Agents x31+x32+x33 < 1 x41+x42+x43 < 1 x11+x21+x31+x41 = 1 x12+x22+x32+x42 = 1 Tasks x13+x23+x33+x43 = 1 xij = 0 or 1 for all i and j

s.t.

Transshipment Problem
Linear Programming Formulation xij represents the shipment from node i to node j Min cijxij ij s.t. xij < si for each origin i j xik - xkj = 0 for each intermediate i j node k xij = dj for each destination j i xij > 0 for all i and j

Example: Transshipping
Thomas Industries and Washburn Corporation supply three firms (Zrox, Hewes, Rockwright) with customized shelving for its offices. They both order shelving from the same two manufacturers, Arnold Manufacturers and Supershelf, Inc. Currently weekly demands by the users are 50 for Zrox, 60 for Hewes, and 40 for Rockwright. Both Arnold and Supershelf can supply at most 75 units to its customers. Additional data is shown on the next slide.

Example: Transshipping
Because of long standing contracts based on past orders, unit costs from the manufacturers to the suppliers are: Thomas Arnold 5 Supershelf 7 Washburn 8 4

The costs to install the shelving at the various locations are:

Zrox Thomas 1 Washburn 3 Hewes Rockwright 5 8 4 4

Example: Transshipping
Network Representation
Arnold 75 ARNOLD
ZROX

Zrox

50

1
Thomas

5 8
Hewes HEWES

60

7 75 Shelf
Super

3
WASH BURN Burn

Wash-

4 4
RockWright

40

Transshipment
Widgetco manufactures widgets at two factories, one in Memphis and one in Denver. The Memphis factory can produce as many as 150 widgets per day, and the Denver factory can produce as many as 200 widgets per day. Widgets are shipped by air to customers in Los Angeles and Boston. The customers in each city require 130 widgets per day. Because of the deregulation of airfares, Widgetco believes that it may be cheaper to first fly some widgets to New York or Chicago and then fly them to their final destinations. The costs of flying a widget are shown in Table 58. Widgetco wants to minimize the total cost of shipping the required widgets to its customers.

Transportation Table

Sources
Wayne Winston Anderson Sweeney Williams