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A NOVEL INITIAL BASIC FEASIBLE SOLUTION METHOD FOR

TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM

Article  in   International Journal of Advanced Computer Research · February 2018

DOI: 10.26483/ijarcs.v9i1.5319

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26483/ijarcs.v9i1.5319
ISSN No. 0976-5697
Volume 9, No. 1, January-February 2018
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science
RESEARCH PAPER
Available Online at www.ijarcs.info
A NOVEL INITIAL BASIC FEASIBLE SOLUTION METHOD FOR
TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM
Surjit Paul
Department of CSE, NIT Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India
Email: [email protected]

Abstract: One of the popular operation research problems is transportation problem. Its solution is basically divided into two parts. Initially
Initial Basic Feasible Solution (IBFS) is obtained then the result is used to calculate the optimal solution. The popular methods to find IBFS of
transportation problem are North West Corner Method (NWCM), Least Cost Method (LCM), and Vogel’s Approximation Method (VAM). In
this paper, a novel approximation method is proposed to find out the IBFS of the transportation problem. There are five different examples used
for which the IBFS are calculated using NWCR, LCM, VAM, and our proposed method. The results show that the proposed method provides
the best result among them.

Keywords: Transportation problem, IBFS, NWCM, LCM, VAM.

I. INTRODUCTION transportation problem is obtained i.e. mn. The total number

of constraints for the transportation problem is m+n. For
There are many problems discussed in operations feasible solution the total number of allocations should be
research and Transportation problem is one of the widely (m+n–1).
used problems discussed in linear programming problem of The organization of the paper is as follows: section II deals
operation research which is directly used in our day to day with literature review; section III deals the proposed
logistics and supply chain activities. It helps to solve approximation method; section IV deals with results
problems related to distribution and transportation of analysis and finally section V concludes the paper.
resources from various sources to destinations so that the
cost of transportation should be optimal for the commodity. II. LITERATURE REVIEW
The units of resources to be supplied from source to
destination are the primary objective so that the cost of One of the most important problems discussed in
transportation should be minimal and profit should be operations research is the transportation problem. It deals
maximum. with the transportation of some products from source to
Let xij be the quantity transported from the source i to the destination so that cost of transportation should be minimal
destination j. The problem is mathematically formulated as and also satisfy the constraints related to demand and the
follows: supply. Transportation problem can be utilized in inventory,
Minimize Z= m i=1
n
j=1 Cijxij assignment, traffic, and so on. Transportation problems are
required for analyzing and formulating such models [1-2].
Subject to, Therefore primary objective of transportation problem is to
n find out the IBFS [3-4]. To obtain optimal solution requires
j=1 xij = ai
m start from the IBFS. Therefore IBFS affects the optimal
i=1 xij = bj
And, solution of the transportation problem. In fact, we can say
xij ≥ 0 for all i and j. that finding IBFS would be significant to obtain optimal
Where, solution. There are only few methods available which can
Z : Objective function is minimize the total be used to find IBFS of the transportation problem [5-7].
transportation cost. The names of the methods are as follows: NWCM [8, 9],
Cij: Transportation cost per unit from source i to LCM [8, 9], and VAM [8-10]. In NWCM, the process
destination j. begins from the northwest corner cell in the transportation
xij: Units of commodity sent from source i to table. In LCM, a cell having lower cost is selected sooner
destination j. than a cell with higher cost. In fact, the process starts with
ai : Quantity supplied from source i. the cell having the least cost of the transportation table.
bj : Quantity demanded at destination j. Most of the cases the LCM find IBFS better than NWCM
Transportation problem is balanced if Supply { m because algorithm uses costs during the allocation unlike
i=1 ai } =
Demand { m b } LCM. In LCM, all processes used in NWCM are repeated
i=1 i
the only difference is that cell having minimum cost is
Otherwise unbalanced if Supply { m i=1 ai } ≠ Demand
selected first instead the northwest cell. VAM [11] is based
{ m i=1 b i }
on rows and column penalty where difference between two
When number of rows are multiplied with number of lowest cell costs for each rows and columns is considered as
columns then total number of variables are used in the

© 2015-19, IJARCS All Rights Reserved 1

 Surjit Paul, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 9 (1), Jan-Feb 2018,

penalty to initiate the process. It is the best among LCM and Step6. If ai < bj , leave the ith row and readjust bj
NWCM. as bj’ = bj- ai . If ai > bj , leave the jth column and
readjust ai as ai ’= ai - bj. If ai = bj, then leave both
III. NOVEL APPROXIMATION METHOD the ith row and jth column.
Step7. Repeat step 4 to step 6 until the demand and
The step by step process of the proposed method is supply requirement are exhausted.
given below: Step8. Put all the allocations of the positive
Step1. Subtract elements of each row with the least allocated cells of the reduced matrix to the original
element of each row. transportation table and calculate the total
Step2. Subtract elements of each column with the transportation cost.
least element of each column.
𝑚 𝑛
Step3. Calculate the distribution indicators by Minimize Z= 𝑖=1 𝑗 =1 Cijxij
subtracting the smallest and next-to smallest Where,
element of each row and each column of the xij is the total allocation of the (i, j)th cell and Cij is
reduced matrix and write them just after and below the corresponding unit transportation cost.
of the supply and demand amount respectively.
Step4. Identify the highest distribution indicator, if IV. RESULTS ANALYSIS
there are two or highest indicators then choose the
highest indicator along which the smallest value For verifying results of the proposed algorithm five
presents in the cell. If there are two or more examples are considered. The IBFS for each of the five
smallest elements present in the cells, choose any examples are calculated using NWCR, LCM, VAM, and the
one of them arbitrarily. proposed method.
Step5. Allocate Xij = min ( ai, bj) on the left bottom
of the largest element in the (i, j)th cell of the
reduced matrix.

Example1:

Destination
D1 D2 D3 D4 Supply
Source

S1 20 22 17 4 120
S2 24 37 9 7 70
S3 32 37 20 15 50
Demand 60 40 30 110 240

NWCR=3680 LCM=3670 VAM=3520 Proposed Method=3460

Example2:
Destination
D1 D2 D3 D4 Supply
Source

S1 10 22 15 4 120
S2 18 27 5 9 70
S3 32 37 24 15 50
Demand 60 40 30 110 240

NWCR=3120 LCM=3210 VAM=2820 Proposed Method=2820

Example3:
Destination
Source

D1 D2 D3 D4 Supply
S1 4 19 22 11 100
S2 1 9 14 14 30
S3 6 6 16 14 70
Demand 40 20 60 80 200

NWCR=2820 LCM=2090 VAM=2170 Proposed Method=2090

© 2015-19, IJARCS All Rights Reserved 2

 Surjit Paul, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 9 (1), Jan-Feb 2018,

Example4:
Destination
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 Supply

Source
S1 10 8 9 5 13 100
S2 7 9 8 10 4 80
S3 9 3 7 10 6 70
S4 11 4 8 3 9 90
Demand 60 40 100 50 90 340

NWCR=3010 LCM=2070 VAM=2130 Proposed Method=2150

Example5:

Destination
D1 D2 D3 D4 Supply
Source

S1 7 5 9 11 30
S2 4 3 8 6 25
S3 3 8 10 5 20
S4 2 6 7 3 15
Demand 30 30 20 10 90

NWCR=540 LCM=435 VAM=470 Proposed Method=410

The Figure 1 shows the comparative graph of IBFS results using NWCR, LCM, VAM, and the proposed method of the
five examples considered for the evaluation. From Figure1, it can be depicted that the proposed method outperforms than
NWCR, LCM, and VAM. The transportation cost of the proposed method is minimum.

Figure 1 Comparison among NWCR, LCM, VAM, and Proposed Method

V. CONCLUSION
Issue 1, 2014, pp. 82–90.
The proposed novel method for finding IBFS provides https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2014.01.036.
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approximation method for solving an unbalanced
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