An Innovative Approach to Obtain an Initial Basic Feasible Solution for the Transportation Problems

Abstract

Operating cost related to transportation is known as transportation cost. The cost of transporting products plays a vital role to maximize profit. In the present competitive global market, industries must have a very good planning of their transportation system to minimize the transportation cost. Modeling of this transporting path is a managerial decision which is concerned with finding optimal distribution plan for a single homogeneous commodity with minimal transportation cost. This modeling is known as transportation problem which can be formulated as a linear programming problem. In the solution procedure of a transportation problem, an initial basic feasible solution is always required to obtain the optimal solution. The well-known solution procedure for finding an initial basic feasible solution of transportation problems are North West Corner Method, Least Cost Method, Vogel’s Approximation Method, and Extremum Difference Method. In this study, we propose a new method to obtain an initial basic feasible solution for the transportation problems. Proposed method is illustrated with numerical examples. A comparative study is also carried out to justify the performance of the proposed method. It is observed that the performance of proposed method is suitable for solving transportation problems.