Model Building in Mathematical Programming, 5th Edition

Chapter 5

Applications and special types of mathematical programming model

5.1 Typical applications

The purpose of this section is to create an awareness of the areas where linear programming (LP) is applicable. To categorize totally those industries and problems where LP can, or cannot, be used would be impossible. Some problems clearly lend themselves to an LP model. For other problems, the use of an LP model may not provide a totally satisfactory solution but may be considered acceptable in the absence of other approaches. The decision of when to use, and when not to use, LP is often a subjective one depending on an individual's experience.

This section can do no more than try to give a ‘feel’ for those areas in which LP can be applied. In order to do this, a list of industries and areas in which the technique has been applied is given. This list is by no means exhaustive but is intended to include most of the major users. A short discussion is given of the types of LP models that are of use in each area. References are given to some of the relevant published case studies. In view of the very wide use that has been made of LP, it would be almost impossible to seek out every reference to published case studies. Nor would it be helpful to submerge the reader in a mass of often superfluous literature. The intention is to give sufficient references and allowing the reader to follow up published case studies. From the references given here, it should be possible to find other references ...