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Difference between transportation and assignment problems?

Lets understand the difference between transportation and assignment problems.

Transportation problems and assignment problems are two types of linear programming problems that arise in different applications.

The main difference between transportation and assignment problems is in the nature of the decision variables and the constraints.

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Difference between transportation and assignment problems

Additional Different between Transportation and Assignment Problems are as follows : 

Decision Variables:

In a transportation problem, the decision variables represent the flow of goods from sources to destinations. Each variable represents the quantity of goods transported from a source to a destination.

In contrast, in an assignment problem, the decision variables represent the assignment of agents to tasks. Each variable represents whether an agent is assigned to a particular task or not.

Constraints:

In a transportation problem, the constraints ensure that the supply from each source matches the demand at each destination and that the total flow of goods does not exceed the capacity of each source and destination.

In contrast, in an assignment problem, the constraints ensure that each task is assigned to exactly one agent and that each agent is assigned to at most one task.

Objective function:

The objective function in a transportation problem typically involves minimizing the total cost of transportation or maximizing the total profit of transportation.

In an assignment problem, the objective function typically involves minimizing the total cost or maximizing the total benefit of assigning agents to tasks.

In summary,

The transportation problem is concerned with finding the optimal way to transport goods from sources to destinations,

while the assignment problem is concerned with finding the optimal way to assign agents to tasks.

Both problems are important in operations research and have numerous practical applications.

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Operations Research/Transportation and Assignment Problem

The Transportation and Assignment problems deal with assigning sources and jobs to destinations and machines. We will discuss the transportation problem first.

Suppose a company has m factories where it manufactures its product and n outlets from where the product is sold. Transporting the product from a factory to an outlet costs some money which depends on several factors and varies for each choice of factory and outlet. The total amount of the product a particular factory makes is fixed and so is the total amount a particular outlet can store. The problem is to decide how much of the product should be supplied from each factory to each outlet so that the total cost is minimum.

Let us consider an example.

Suppose an auto company has three plants in cities A, B and C and two major distribution centers in D and E. The capacities of the three plants during the next quarter are 1000, 1500 and 1200 cars. The quarterly demands of the two distribution centers are 2300 and 1400 cars. The transportation costs (which depend on the mileage, transport company etc) between the plants and the distribution centers is as follows:

Which plant should supply how many cars to which outlet so that the total cost is minimum?

The problem can be formulated as a LP model:

{\displaystyle x_{ij}}

The whole model is:

subject to,

{\displaystyle x_{11}+x_{12}=1000}

The problem can now be solved using the simplex method. A convenient procedure is discussed in the next section.

the difference between transportation problem and assignment problem

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Linear Programming and Its Applications pp 140–184 Cite as

Transportation and Assignment Problems

  • James K. Strayer 2  

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Part of the book series: Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics ((UTM))

Transportation and assignment problems are traditional examples of linear programming problems. Although these problems are solvable by using the techniques of Chapters 2–4 directly, the solution procedure is cumbersome; hence, we develop much more efficient algorithms for handling these problems. In the case of transportation problems, the algorithm is essentially a disguised form of the dual simplex algorithm of 4§2. Assignment problems, which are special cases of transportation problems, pose difficulties for the transportation algorithm and require the development of an algorithm which takes advantage of the simpler nature of these problems.

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Department of Mathematics, Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA, 17745, USA

James K. Strayer

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Strayer, J.K. (1989). Transportation and Assignment Problems. In: Linear Programming and Its Applications. Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1009-2_7

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AllDifferences

Difference Between Assignment and Transportation Model

  • 1.1 Comparison Between Assignment and Transportation Model With Tabular Form
  • 1.2 Comparison Chart
  • 1.3 Similarities
  • 2 More Difference

Comparison Between Assignment and Transportation Model With Tabular Form

The Major Difference Between Assignment and Transportation model is that Assignment model may be regarded as a special case of the transportation model. However, the Transportation algorithm is not very useful to solve this model because of degeneracy.

Assignment Model and Transportation Model Comparison

Comparison Chart

Similarities.

  • Both are special types of linear programming problems.
  • Both have an objective function, structural constraints, and non-negativity constraints. And the relationship between variables and constraints is linear.
  • The coefficients of variables in the solution will be either 1 or zero in both cases.
  • Both are basically minimization problems. For converting them into maximization problems same procedure is used.

More Difference

  • Difference between Lagrangian and Eulerian Approach
  • Difference between Line Standards and End Standards

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  4. Assignment Problem: Difference between Transportation Problem

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VIDEO

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