By: Abdul Basit Raees (9893) Sheraz Hassan Farrukh Kashif

A network model is one which can be represented by a set of nodes, a set of arcs, and functions (e.g. costs, supplies, demands, etc) associated with the arcs and/or nodes. This model can be formulated by linear programs and solved by general purpose linear programming codes.

The assignment problem arises in a variety of decision-making situations; typical assignment problems involve assigning jobs to machines, agents to tasks, sales personnel to sales territories, contracts to bidders and so on. A distinguishing feature of the assignment problem is that one agent is assigned to one and only one task. Specifically, we look for the set of assignments that will optimize a stated objective, such as minimize cost, minimize time, or maximize profit. It assumes all workers are assigned and each job is performed. An assignment problem is a special case of a transportation problem in which all supplies and all demands are equal to 1; hence assignment problems may be solved as linear programs

C11

Agents

C22 C32

C33

Tasks

C12 C13

The company faces the task of assigning a job to each client. Currently, three individuals have no other commitments & are available for the project leader assignments. The three projects have approximately the same priority, and the company wants to assign project leader to minimize the total number of days required to complete all three projects

With three project leaders and three clients, nine assignment alternatives are possible. The alternatives and estimated project completion times in days are summarized as follows:
1 10 9 6 Tasks 2 15 18 14 3 9 5 3

Agents Terry Carle McClymonds

18 14

1
Supplies

Possible Assignments (arcs)

Demands

Tasks (Destination nodes)

1
Agents (Origin nodes)

10
15 9

The sum of the completion times for the three agents will provide the total days required to complete the three assignments. Thus, the objective function is to minimize the total days: Min:
10X11 + 15X12 + 9X13 + 9X21 + 18X22 + 5X23 + 6X31 + 14X32 + 3X33

The constraints for the assignment problem reflect the condition that each agent can be assigned to at most one task and that each agent must have one assigned task. These constraints are written as follows: X11 + X12 + X13 1 Terrys assignment X21 + X22 + X23 1 Carles assignment X31 + X32 + X33 1 McClymondss assignment X11 + X21 + X31 = 1 Task 1 X12 + X22 + X32 = 1 Task 2 X13 + X23 + X33 = 1 Task 3 Note that one constraint matches up with each node in its network representation.

ASSIGNED AGENTS
Terry Carle McClymonds

Tasks
2 3 1 Total

Days
15 5 6 26

Agent Terry will get job 2 and will complete it in 15 days. Agent Carle will get job 3 and will complete it in 5 days. Agent McClymonds will get job 1 and will complete it in 6 days. Total minimal time to complete all the jobs is 26 days.