Quantitative Analysis for Management, 13/e

M7.3 Surplus and Artificial Variables

Up to this point in the module, all of the LP constraints you have seen were of the less-than-or-equal-to $(\le )$ variety. Just as common in real-life problems—especially in LP minimization problems—are greater-than-or-equal-to $(\ge )$ constraints and equalities. To use the simplex method, each of these must also be converted to a special form. If they are not, the simplex technique is unable to set up an initial solution in the first tableau.

To handle $\ge$ and $\mathrm{=}$ constraints, the simplex method makes a conversion like it made to $\le$ constraints.

Before moving on to the next section of this module, which deals with solving LP minimization problems with the simplex method, we take a look at how to convert a few typical ...