Assignment Problem: Meaning, Methods and Variations | Operations Research
After reading this article you will learn about:- 1. Meaning of Assignment Problem 2. Definition of Assignment Problem 3. Mathematical Formulation 4. Hungarian Method 5. Variations.
Meaning of Assignment Problem:
An assignment problem is a particular case of transportation problem where the objective is to assign a number of resources to an equal number of activities so as to minimise total cost or maximize total profit of allocation.
The problem of assignment arises because available resources such as men, machines etc. have varying degrees of efficiency for performing different activities, therefore, cost, profit or loss of performing the different activities is different.
Thus, the problem is “How should the assignments be made so as to optimize the given objective”. Some of the problem where the assignment technique may be useful are assignment of workers to machines, salesman to different sales areas.
Definition of Assignment Problem:
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Suppose there are n jobs to be performed and n persons are available for doing these jobs. Assume that each person can do each job at a term, though with varying degree of efficiency, let c ij be the cost if the i-th person is assigned to the j-th job. The problem is to find an assignment (which job should be assigned to which person one on-one basis) So that the total cost of performing all jobs is minimum, problem of this kind are known as assignment problem.
The assignment problem can be stated in the form of n x n cost matrix C real members as given in the following table:
Difference between transportation and assignment problems?
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lets understand the Difference between transportation and assignment problems?
Transportation problems and assignment problems are two types of linear programming problems that arise in different applications.
The main difference between transportation and assignment problems is in the nature of the decision variables and the constraints.
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Additional Difference between Transportation and Assignment Problems are as follows :
Decision Variables:
In a transportation problem, the decision variables represent the flow of goods from sources to destinations. Each variable represents the quantity of goods transported from a source to a destination.
In contrast, in an assignment problem, the decision variables represent the assignment of agents to tasks. Each variable represents whether an agent is assigned to a particular task or not.
Constraints:
In a transportation problem, the constraints ensure that the supply from each source matches the demand at each destination and that the total flow of goods does not exceed the capacity of each source and destination.
In contrast, in an assignment problem, the constraints ensure that each task is assigned to exactly one agent and that each agent is assigned to at most one task.
Objective function:
The objective function in a transportation problem typically involves minimizing the total cost of transportation or maximizing the total profit of transportation.
In an assignment problem, the objective function typically involves minimizing the total cost or maximizing the total benefit of assigning agents to tasks.
In summary,
The transportation problem is concerned with finding the optimal way to transport goods from sources to destinations,
while the assignment problem is concerned with finding the optimal way to assign agents to tasks.
Both problems are important in operations research and have numerous practical applications.
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