Sequentially Updated Weighted Cost Opportunity Based Algorithm in Transportation Problem

Abstract

Transportation models are of multidisciplinary fields of interest. In classical transportation approaches, the flow of allocation is controlled by the cost entries and/or manipulation of cost entries – so called Distribution Indicator (DI) or Total Opportunity Cost (TOC). But these DI or TOC tables are formulated by the manipulation of cost entries only. None of them considers demand and/or supply entry to formulate the DI/ TOC table. Recently authors have developed weighted opportunity cost (WOC) matrix where this weighted opportunity cost matrix is formulated by the manipulation of supply and demand entries along with cost entries as well. In this WOC matrix, the supply and demand entries act as weight factors. Moreover by incorporating this WOC matrix in Least Cost Matrix, authors have developed a new approach to find out Initial Basic Feasible Solution of Transportation Problems. But in that approach, WOC matrix was invariant in every step of allocation procedures. That is, after the first time formulation of the weighted opportunity cost matrix, the WOC matrix was invariant throughout all allocation procedures. On the other hand in VAM method, the flow of allocation is controlled by the DI table and this table is updated after each allocation step. Motivated by this idea, we have reformed the WOC matrix as Sequentially Updated Weighted Opportunity Cost (SUWOC) matrix. The significance difference of these two matrices is that, WOC matrix is invariant through all over the allocation procedures whereas SUWOC   matrix is updated in each step of allocation procedures. Note that here update (/invariant) means changed (/unchanged) the weighted opportunity cost of the cells. Finally by incorporating this SUWOC matrix in Least Cost Matrix, we have developed a new approach to find out Initial Basic Feasible Solution of Transportation Problems.  Some experiments have been carried out to justify the validity and the effectiveness of the proposed SUWOC-LCM approach. Experimental results reveal that the SUWOC-LCM approach outperforms to find out IBFS. Moreover sometime this approach is able to find out optimal solution too.

GANIT J. Bangladesh Math. Soc.Vol. 38 (2018) 47-55