Elements of Numerical Mathematical Economics with Excel

11.3. Cargo loading allocation problems: tabular method and the Excel Solver

As described thoroughly by Richard Bellman and Stuart Dreyfus ³ the dynamic programming technique is also useful for the one-dimensional allocation types of process. We will see here the cargo loading problem, that is stated, in its simplest form, in the following terms.

A cargo ship has a maximum capacity W, and the cargo is to consist of different quantities x _i of different N items.

Now let:

w i = the weight of the i t h type of item ,

v i = the value of the i t h type of item ,

x i = the number of items of ...