North West Corner Rule based programming development to find the initial basic feasible solution of transportation problem

Abstract

Transportation problem is one of the leading problems among the operation research problems which is engaged with daily activities in our real life and mainly deals with logistics. It is a very important class of model in linear programming and related with the condition where transporting commodities or resources from sources to destinations. The primary purpose of the problem is saving the transportation time and steps by using minimal cost of transformation. The solution of this problem basically divided into two categories such as the Initial Basic Feasible Solution (IBFS) and the Optimal Solution (OS). The objective of this research is to develop a program to find the Initial Basic Feasible solution of the transportation problem using the North West Corner Rule (NWCR). The C# programming language has used to develop this programme for the both balanced and unbalanced situations. Also, this can be used to solve any situation of transportation problem using the North West Corner Rule with wider range than other methods. Finally, this proposed programme is more helpful for the decision makers who are handling the unbalanced supply and demand quantities in frequently. Also, this is time saving and robust method for using the NWCR method and therefore, the final answer has a higher level of reliability without human errors rather than applying the method manually.