Operations Management: Processes and Supply Chains, 12th Edition

The Transportation Method

A special case of linear programming is the transportation problem, which can be represented as a standard table, sometimes called a tableau. Figure D.10 is an example, where the rows are supply sources and the columns are demands. Both the supplies and demands can be broken down into several periods into the future. Typically, the rows of the table are linear constraints that impose capacity limitations, and the columns are linear constraints that require certain demand levels to be met. Each cell in the tableau is a decision variable, and a per-unit cost is shown in the upper-right corner of each cell. Figure D.10 implies 52 decision variables $\left(13\text{ rows}\times 4\text{ columns}\right)$ and 17 constraints $(13\text{ rows}+4\text{ columns}$