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The Assignment Problem: An Example: Sinks

The document describes an assignment problem where a company has 4 machines that can each be assigned to 4 tasks. The time required for each machine to complete each task is given in a table. The goal is to minimize the total setup time for all tasks. This is formulated as a transportation problem to find the optimal assignment of machines to tasks. An initial basic feasible solution is found and the u-v method is used to test for optimality, identifying a reducing cell to improve the solution.

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65 views4 pages

The Assignment Problem: An Example: Sinks

The document describes an assignment problem where a company has 4 machines that can each be assigned to 4 tasks. The time required for each machine to complete each task is given in a table. The goal is to minimize the total setup time for all tasks. This is formulated as a transportation problem to find the optimal assignment of machines to tasks. An initial basic feasible solution is found and the u-v method is used to test for optimality, identifying a reducing cell to improve the solution.

Uploaded by

Johnryl Francisco
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

The Assignment Problem: An Example

A company has 4 machines available for assignment to 4 tasks. Any machine can be assigned
to any task, and each task requires processing by one machine. The time required to set up
each machine for the processing of each task is given in the table below.

TIME (Hours)
Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4
Machine 1 13 4 7 6
Machine 2 1 11 5 4
Machine 3 6 7 2 8
Machine 4 1 3 5 9

The company wants to minimize the total setup time needed for the processing of all four
tasks.

If we think of the setup times as transportation costs and define

1 if machine i is assigned to process task j,


xij =
0 if machine i is not assigned to process task j,

where i = 1, 2, 3, 4 and j = 1, 2, 3, 4, then it is easily seen that what we have is a balanced


transportation problem with 4 sources (representing the machines), 4 sinks (representing the
tasks), a single unit of supply from each source (representing the availability of a machine),
and a single unit of demand at each sink (representing the processing requirement of a task).
This particular class of transportation problems is called the assignment problems. These
problems can, of course, be solved by the streamlined Simplex algorithm. This is sketched
below.

The transportation tableau for this problem is given below.

Sinks
1 2 3 4
13 4 7 6
1 1
1 11 5 4
2 1
Sources 6 7 2 8
3 1
1 3 5 9
4 1
1 1 1 1

1
Using the least-cost method, an initial basic feasible solution can be easily obtained; this is
shown in the tableau below.

Sinks
1∗ 2∗ 3∗ 4∗
13 4 7 6
1 1 0 0 1/0
1 11 5 4
2∗ 1 1/0/
Sources 6 7 2 8
3∗ 1 1/0/
1 3 5 9
4∗ 1 0 1/0/
1/0/ 1/0/ 1/0/ 1/0/

These assignments are made in the following order: x41 = 1, x33 = 1, x42 = 0, x12 = 1,
x24 = 1, x14 = 0, and x13 = 0. Notice that a standard feature of any basic feasible solution
in an assignment problem is that it is degenerate.

Next, we will use the u-v method to conduct the optimality test. The modifiers associated
with the current solution, based on the initial assignment u1 = 0, are shown in the tableau
below.
Sinks
1 2 3 4 Modifier
13 4 7 6
1 1 0 0 1 u1 = 0
1 11 5 4
2 1 1 u2 = −2
Sources 6 7 2 8
3 1 1 u3 = −5
1 3 5 9
4 1 0 1 u4 = −1
1 1 1 1

Modifier v1 = 2 v2 = 4 v3 = 7 v4 = 6

It follows that the reduced costs associated with the nonbasic cells are: c̄11 = 11, c̄21 = 1,
c¯22 = 9, c¯23= 0, c¯31 = 9, c¯32 = 8, c¯34 = 7, c¯43 = −1, and c¯44 = 4. Since c¯43 = −1, the current
solution is not optimal, and the entering cell is cell (4, 3).

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3

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