Stepping Stone Method
Stepping Stone Method
Stepping Stone Method
After computing an initial basic feasible solution, we must now proceed to determine whether the solution so obtained is optimal or
not. Now, we will discuss about the methods used for finding an optimal solution. The Stepping Stone Method is for finding the
optimal solution of a transportation problem.
The decision problem is to minimize the total transportation cost for all factory-depot shipping patterns.
Solution:
An initial basic feasible solution is obtained by Matrix Minimum Method and is shown below in table 1.
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Note: Please note that the right angle turn in this path is permitted only at occupied cells and at the original unoccupied cell.
The increase in the transportation cost per unit quantity of reallocation is
+4 6 + 5 3 = 0.
This indicates that every unit allocated to route AD will neither increase nor decrease the transportation cost. Thus, such a reallocation
is unnecessary.
Choose another unoccupied cell. The cell BE is empty so allocate one unit to it.
Now draw a closed path from BE as shown below in table 3.
Since all the values of unoccupied cells are greater than or equal to zero, the solution obtained is optimal.
Minimum transportation cost is:
6 X 450 + 6 X 250 + 3 X 50 + 2 X 350 + 3 X 350 + 5 X 250 = Rs. 7350
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Solution:
We compute an initial basic feasible solution of the problem by Matrix Minimum Method as shown in table 1.
The increase in the transportation cost per unit quantity of reallocation is:
+ 2 1 + 3 7 = - 3.
The allocations for other unoccupied cells are following:
This indicates that the route through AD would be beneficial to the company. The maximum amount that can be allocated to AD is 10
and this will make the current basic variable corresponding to cell AE non basic.
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Since the reallocation in any other unoccupied cell cannot decrease the transportation cost, the minimum transportation cost is:
2 X 10 + 7 X 3 + 3 X 22 + 6 X 2 + 3 X 18 = Rs.173
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