Abstract

A linear programming problem is simply an optimization problem. (A maximization or minimization problem). A large number of optimization problems fall into the subcategory linear programming problems. In order to solve a real world mathematical problem using linear programming, first of all the wording or problem statement in words should be translated into a set of inequalities or equations. It should have certain constraints for a solution to exist. Also some assumptions will have to be made when formulating the mathematical model for a LPP. It is possible to represent a linear programming problem geometrically and solve it while also using a method named Simplex method. In some cases even MatLAB is used to find solutions for LPP. What needed to be known of a LPP are What the components of the problem are-objective and variables affecting the problem. How to formulate the problem-is it a minimization or maximization problem? What assumptions are underlying How to find a solution to a 2-dimensional problem graphically. How to find a solution using simplex method

The prerequisites for solving a LPP are knowledge of geometrical representation and the knowledge in solving linear equations and linear inequalities.

Problem description
A company manufactures and sells two models of lamps L1, L2 the profit being $15 and $10, respectively. The process involves two workers W1 and W2 who are available for this kind of work 100 and 80 hours per month, respectively. W1 assembles L1 in 20 minutes and L2 in 30 minutes. W2 paints L1 in 20 minutes and L2 in 10 minutes. It is assumed for this problem that all lamps made can be sold without difficulty. The objective is to find the figures of L 1 and L2 for which the maximum profit is obtained. This problem is a common problem for production departments. Managers need to determine how much products they need to manufacture for a month in order to get the maximum profit, while utilizing the presently available resources (both material and human resources). The questions we need to answer for this problem is how many L1 and L2 need to be produced for the maximum profit.

Simplification
Take that the quantity of L1 for maximum profit as also L1 and similarly quantity of L2 for maximum profit is L2. Taking the profit as f (L1, L2) the equation for profit can be written as f ( L1,L2) = ( unit profit of L1* L1) + (unit profit of L2* L2) PROFIT Assumption: Here it is assumed that all manufactured number of lamps is sold by the end of the month. This assumption is made in order to further simplify this mathematical model. f (L1, L2) = $ (15* L1 + 10*L2) -----------------------------------------(A)

Considering the work done by worker W1 and the time constraints for that worker we can identify that the time taken for his work possibly wont exceed 100 hours per month. (20 minutes * L1)+ (30 minutes*L2) (100* 60 minutes) PROCESSING TIME

20*L1 + 30*L2 6000 -------------------------------------------------- (B) Next considering the W2 worker and his time constraints, (20 minutes * L1) + (10 minutes * L2) (80 * 60 minutes) PROCESSING TIME

20*L1 + 10*L2 4800---------------------------------------------------- (C) Also as the number of L1 and L2 cannot be lesser than zero anyway the constraints for these conditions are, L1 0--------------------------------------------------------------------------- (D) L2 0--------------------------------------------------------------------------- (E)

General Statement of the Linear Programming Problem:

Objective Function: Maximize f (L1, L2) = $ (15* L1 + 10*L2) ----------------------------------------- (A) Constraint Equations: Subject to: 20*L1 + 30*L2 6000 -------------------------------------------------- (B) 20*L1 + 10*L2 4800---------------------------------------------------- (C) L1 0--------------------------------------------------------------------------- (D) 3

L2 0--------------------------------------------------------------------------- (E) The number of lamps sold can be different in the practical world. However by assuming that all the lamps manufactured are sold there is no need to calculate the percentage of lamps sold. There is no record about that. So this assumption is justified. Also since the number of lamps sold of each type can never be lesser than zero the constraints (D) and (E) are justified.

Mathematical Model
The standard representation of a linear programming problem is Maximize/minimize OBJECTIVE FUNCTION Subject to CONSTRAINTS Since in our problem we have only two variables number of L1 lamps = x and number of L2 lamps= y, rewriting the simplified problem in the form of a Linear Programming Problem Model we get Maximize f (x, y) = $ (15* x + 10*y) ----------------------------------------- (A) Subject to: 20*x + 30*y 6000 -------------------------------------------------------------- (B) 20*x + 10*y 4800--------------------------------------------------------------- (C) x 0---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (D) y0----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (E)

Solution of the Mathematical Problem Graphical Method

In the graphical method following steps are followed. Convert the constraint inequalities into equations. (Simply replace the unequal sign with equal sign) a. 20*x + 30*y =6000 -------------------------------------------------------------- (p) b. 20*x + 10*y = 4800--------------------------------------------------------------- (q) c. x =0---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (r) d. y=0----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (s) Draw the graphs for these linear equations on the x, y coordinate system.

Feasible region

Figure 1:- Graphs consisting the constraint equations

2. Identify the feasible area for the solution. In this case the shaded region contains the solution for the possible values for objective function. However in order to determine 5

the maximum value for the objective function, the corner points should be identified. Corner points are points at which each of above graphs intersect each other. Corner points: a. The corner point at which equation p and q intersect, A is obtained by solving the two graph equations parallel. 20*x + 30*y =6000 -------------------------------------------------------------- (p) 20*x + 10*y = 4800--------------------------------------------------------------- (q) In matrix form the parallel equation can be written as,

20 20

30 10

x y =

6000 4800

By solving above equation we get values for x and y as, x=210 y=60

A=

(210,

Figure 2: Corner point A found

Similarly the other four corner points at which the rest of the three graphs intersect can be calculated. Corner pint D at which p and r equations intersect y=0, x=200 D= (200, 0) Corner point at C= (0, 0) and Corner point at B= (0,240) Next by calculating the value of the objective function at the corner points the maximum and minimum values for the object function can be found.

Results
Table 1:- Value of objective function at the corner points

Objective Function value Corner Points ($) (0,0) (210,60) 7 0 3750

(200,0) (0,240)

3000 2400

According to Table 1 It can be seen that the maximum value for the objective function is at Corner point (210, 60), at which the objective function value i.e. Maximum profit of company is $3750. Therefore from this graphical method the figures of L1 and L2 for which the maximum profit can be obtained is calculated as Number of L1(x) = 210 Number of L2(y) = 60

Simplex method
In simplex method first of all the constraint inequalities of the problem statement should be rewritten as equations by introducing a slack variables. Slack variables are the variables that pick up the extra value needed to convert the inequalities into equalities. So by taking the slack variables as u and v we rewrite the problem statement as, Objective Function: Maximize z = 15* x + 10*y ----------------------------------------- (A) Number of L1=x, number of L2=y Subject to: 20*x + 30*y + u = 6000 -------------------------------------------------- (B)

20*x + 10*y + v = 4800---------------------------------------------------- (C) x ,y, u, v 0--------------------------------------------------------------------------- (D) Next we have to form the simplex tableau. For that we have to write above system of linear equations in 3 rows as following. Z 20*x 20*x + + 15* x + 30*y + 10*y u v = = = 0 6000 4800 Row 0 Row 1 Row 2

10*y +

These equations have to be solved in terms of basic variables and non-basic variables. The variables (other than the special variable z) which appear in only one equation are the basic variables. Other variables except z are non-basic variables. Basic variables= u, v Non-Basic variables= x, y A basic solution is obtained from the system of equations by setting the non-basic variables to zero. This gives x=0 y=0 u=6000 v=4800

The simplex tableau

x 20 20 -15

y 30 10 -10

u 1 0 0

v 0 1 0

z 0 0 1

| | | | 6000 9 4800 0 Row 1 Row2 Row 0

Next according to the first rule of Simplex method the row 0 has to be observed carefully. If

If

all variables have a nonnegative coefficient in Row 0, the current basic solution is optimal. If not, for speedy convergence the most negative coefficient is chosen. In this example as the row zero contains negative coefficients. Therefore this basic solution IS NOT optimal. So we pick the most negative coefficient -15. We call the variable containing this coefficient as the entering variable. In this case it is x. The idea is to pivot in order to make the non-basic variable x become a basic variable. When choosing the pivot element first the values in the right most column should be divided by the relevant pivot column element and the pivot column element which gives the smallest value has to be chosen. This is the second rule of the simplex method.

x 20 20 -15

y 30 10 -10

u 1 0 0

v 0 1 0

z 0 0 1

| | | | 6000 4800 0 6000/20= 300 4800/20= 240

Hence the coefficient 20 in the 2nd row is chosen as the pivoting element. And pivoting around that value gives us the following solution. x 0 1 0 y 20 0.5 -2.5 u 1 0 0 v -1 0.05 0.75 z 0 0 1 | | | | 10 1200 240 3600

Next we again check the row 0 for any negative coefficients according to first rule. In this case again row 0 has a -2.5 negative coefficient. So the column y is our new pivot column. Again applying the second rule we divide the right most column values by the pivot column values and select the pivot element for which the above division is smallest.

x 0 1 0

y 20 0.5 -2.5

u 1 0 0

v -1 0.05 0.75

z 0 0 1

| | | | 1200 240 3600 1200/20= 60 240/0.5= 480

Thus we can see that the value 20 in row 1 is our new pivot element. Therefore pivoting around that element we obtain the following solution.

x 0 1 0

y 1 0 0

u 0.05

| | | | 60 210 3750

-0.05 0

-0.025 0.075 0 0.125 0.625 1

Now we can see that the last row (row 0) doesnt have any negative coefficients. Hence this solution is optimal according to the first rule of simplex method. Therefore as we can see the variables x and y are now basic. Whereas, the variables u and v are now non-basic variables. 11

All the above computations can be represented very compactly in tableau form
Table 2: compact solution tableau

z 1 0 0

x -15 20 20

y -10 30 10

u 0 1 0

v 0 0 1

RHS 0 6000 4800

Basic solution Basic u=6000,v=4800 Non basic x=0 y=0 Z=0

-2.5

0.7 5

3600

Basic x=240,u=1200

0 0

0 1

20 0.5

1 0

-1 0.0 5

1200 240

Non basic y=0 v=0 Z=3600

0.125

0.62 5

3750

Basic x=210,y=60

0 0

0 1

1 0

0.05

-0.05

60 210

Non basic u=0 v=0 Z=3750

-0.025 0.07 5

Results
From the simplex method by two pivoting steps we obtain the optimum solution for the objective function which is the maximum monthly profit of the lamp manufacturing company. Also the production figures for L1 and L2 is also finally obtained as the basic variables of the simplex method as x=210 and y=60. It means the number of L1 lamps and number of L2 lamps needed to get the maximum profit is 210 and 60 respectively. In both methods we followed this result was obtained without any discrepancies.

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The problem we solved has a feasible solution. It had a feasible region for solutions even when the graphs of constraints were plotted. However there are cases in which a solution cannot be founded for linear programming problems. The reasons for this are 1. The linear program is unbounded: this happens when there is no positive entry in the entry variable column. So there can be no ratio calculated at the RHS column. Hence a optimum solution is not possible to find either graphically or by simplex method. 2. The program is degenerate: In the Simplex Method there is an improvement in the objective function in each step as the algorithm converges to the optimum. However, a situation can arise where there is no improvement in the objective function from an application of the algorithm, and this is referred to as degeneracy. Also there is a possibility that cycling could occur, and the optimum would not be reached. This occurs when the basic solution has a basic variable with the coefficient of zero. By pivoting the same basic solution will be obtained with interchanged basic variable values. In order to a solution to exist the following conditions should be satisfied 1. The LPP must have a unique optimum solution : the basic solution itself 2. The LPP must have an alternative optimum solution: by the above two methods the alternative optimum solution can be obtained

Improvements
These two methods are the frequently used methods for solving linear programming problems. Apart from these two methods MatLAB can be used. By using MatLAB the calculations can done using the optimization toolbox in several specifies iteration. In MatLAB the syntax linprog solves linear programming problems.
x = linprog(f,A,b)

solves min/max f'*x such that A*x b. where A is the inequality

matrix, b is a vector.

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Conclusions
In this report we have presented how to solve a real world optimization problem using linear programming model. Linear programming problems are either a maximization problem or minimization problem. In this case the problem we chose is a maximization problem. To obtain the maximum value of the objective function of our Model we followed two well known mathematical methods. Namely, the graphical Method and the Simplex tableau method. Both methods yielded the same values for the variables in order to get the optimum solution. We followed both methods step by step by describing each step simply so that anyone can follow these to solve any linear programming problem. Further we have mentioned that by referring to the graphs of the constraints or by referring to the basic solution of the simplex tableau without calculating we can determine whether any LPP has a solution, if the solution is Feasible, or if the problems solution is unbound or degenerate. The conditions for a LPP to have a solution is also mentioned in this report, after doing some research on it.

References
1984-2011- The Math Works, Inc, Product Documentation,linprog [online] http://www.mathworks.in/help/toolbox/optim/ug/f10534.html [Accessed 09 November 2011]

Linear Programming. Chapter 4 [online] http://www.mpri.lsu.edu/textbook/Chapter5.htm [Accessed 09 November 2011]

Thomas S. Ferguson,2008, LINEAR PROGRAMMING,A Concise Introduction, [pdf] Walter J. Mayer,1984, Concepts of Mathematical Modeling,[pdf] Dover

Publications,Inc,Mineola, NY Jennifer Whitfield,Linear Programming, Sample Simplex Problem,[pdf],College Of Science IT LAB.

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 Robert J. Vanderbei ,October 17, 2007, Linear Programming: Chapter 2 ,The Simplex Method, Operations Research and Financial Engineering ,Princeton University,Princeton, NJ 08544 http://www.princeton.edu/_rvdb

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