Assignment Problems

The Assignment Problem

In many business situations, management
needs to assign - personnel to jobs, - jobs
to machines, - machines to job locations,
or - salespersons to territories.
Consider the situation of assigning n jobs
to n machines.
When a job i (=1,2,....,n) is assigned to
machine j (=1,2, .....n) that incurs a cost
Cij.
The objective is to assign the jobs to
machines at the least possible total cost.

The Assignment Problem

This situation is a special case of the
Transportation Model And it is known
as the assignment problem.
Here, jobs represent sources and
machines represent destinations.
The supply available at each source
is 1 unit And demand at each
destination is 1 unit.

General format of assignment problem

Let m be the number of jobs as well as the

operators, and tij be the processing time of the
job i if it is assigned to the operator j. Here the
objective is to assign the jobs to the operators
such that the total processing time is minimized.
Operators
1
2

m
1
t11
t12
t1j
t1m
Job

2
.
i

ti1

.
m

tm1

tij
tm2

tmj

tim

tmm

 Examples of assignment problem

Row entity
jobs

Column entity Cell entity

operators
Processing
time
Programmer program
Processing
time
operators

machine

Processing
time

Drivers
Teachers

Routes
Subjects

Travel time
Students pass
percentage

The Assignment Problem

The assignment problem can be represented
by nxn or n2 matrix which constitutes n!
ways of making assignments.
One can find optimal solution by
enumerating all possible ways and
evaluating value of cost for each way.
This process is extremely laborious even for
small number like 10.
The value of 10! is 3628800. So there is
need of simpler computational technique.

The Assignment Problem

The assignment model can be

expressed mathematically as follows:
Xij=
0, if the job j is not assigned to
machine i
1, if the job j is assigned to

Comparison with Transportation

Model

Comparison with Transportation

Model

Here m = n
Facilities represents the Sources
Jobs represents the Destinations
Supply available at each source is 1 i.e.
ai =1, for all i.
Demand at each destination is 1 i.e. bj = 1, for all j.
The cost of transporting (assigning) facility i to job j is Cij
The assignment model can be expressed mathematically as
follows:
Xij=

0, if the job j is not assigned to machine i

1, if the job j is assigned to machine i

Here number of constraints is 2n.
The number of allocations at optimal solution is n.

The Assignment Problem

Assignment problem as a zero-one

( Binary) programming problem .
Min Z= c11x11++cijXij+.
+cmmXmm =
Subject to x11+...+x1m
=1
x21+...+x2m
=1
..
xm1+...
+xmm =1
x11+...+xm1
=1
x12+...+xm2

Min Z Cij X ij
i 1 j 1

X
j 1

ij

1 for i 1,....m

ij

1 for j 1,....m

X
i 1

11

Types of assignment
problems
As in transportation problems
assignment problems also can be
balanced ( with equal number of rows
and columns) or unbalanced.
When it is unbalanced the necessary
number of row/s or column/s are added
to balance it. That is to make a square
matrix.
The values of the cell entries of the
dummy rows or columns will be made
12

Theorems Associated with

Assignment Problem
In an assignment problem, if we add or subtract a
constant to every element of row ( or column) in the
cost matrix, then an assignment which minimizes
the total cost on one matrix also minimizes the total
cost on the other matrix.
If all Cij 0 and we can find out a set of Xij = xij
such that
m

Z Cij X ij 0
i 1 j 1

Then the solution is optimal.

Example : Assign the 5 operators to the

5 jobs such that the total processing time is
minimized.
1

10

12

15

12

16

14

14

11

13

14

12

10

11

13

10

13

15

11

15

Operator
job

14

Hungarian method
Consists of two phases.
First phase: row reductions and
column reductions are carried out.
Second phase :the solution is
optimized in iterative basis.

15

Phase 1: Row and column

reductions
Step 0: Consider the given cost matrix
Step 1: Subtract the minimum value of each
row from the entries of that row, to obtain
the next matrix.
Step 2: Subtract the minimum value of each
column from the entries of that column , to
obtain the next matrix.
The matrix obtained after this step is initial
feasible solution and there will be at least
one zero in each row and column.
Treat the resulting matrix as the input for
phase 2.
16

Phase 1: Row and column

reductions
Step 3 : Scan each row. If there is only one zero, Put
mark and put mark to all zeros in the corresponding
column. Further assignment in that column cannot be done.
Examine each column. If there is only one zero unmarked,
put and put mark to all zero in the corresponding
row.
After this, we will reach a condition when there is no
unmarked zero and number of assignments is equal to the
number of rows or column. So, the optimal solution is
reached.

Example : Assign the 5 operators to the

5 jobs such that the total processing
time is minimized.
1

10

12

15

12

16

14

14

11

13

14

12

10

11

13

10

13

15

11

15

Operator
job

18

Example : Assign the 5 operators to the

5 jobs such that the total processing
time is minimized.
1

Operator
job

19

Example : Assign the 5 operators to the

5 jobs such that the total processing
time is minimized.
1

Operator
job

20

Phase 2: Optimization
Step3: Draw a minimum number of lines to cover all
the zeros of the matrix.
Procedure for drawing the minimum number of lines:
3 Row scanning
3.1 Mark all rows that do not have assignment.
3.2 If marked row has zero, then mark the
corresponding column
3.3 If the marked column has assignment, then mark
the corresponding row.
3.4 Repeat step 3.2 and 3.3 till no marking is possible.
3.5 Draw lines through marked column and unmarked
rows.
21

 Step 4: check whether the number of squares

marked is equal to the number of rows/columns of
the matrix.
If yes go to step 7. Otherwise go to step 5.
Step 5: Identify the minimum value out of all cells
which are not covered by any line, say x. Obtain
the next matrix by the following steps.
5.1 Copy the entries covered by the lines ,but not on
the intersection points.
5.2 add x to the intersection points
5.3 subtract x from the undeleted cell values/ not
covered by lines.
Step 6: go to step 3.
Step 7: optimal solution is obtained as marked by
the squares
22

Unbalanced Assignment Problem

A manufacturer of complex electronic equipment has just received
a sizable contract and plans to subcontract part of the job. He has
solicited bids for 6 subcontracts from 3 firms. Each job is sufficiently
large and any firm can take only one job. The table below shows the
bids as well the cost estimates (in lakhs of rupees) for doing the job
internally. Not more than three jobs can be performed internally.

Job
Firm

44

67

41

53

48

64

46

69

40

45

45

68

43

73

37

51

44

62

Intern
al

50

65

35

50

46

63

Find the optimal assignment that will result in minimum total cost.

Maximization Problem
A company has a team of four salesmen and there are
four districts where the company wants to start its
business. After taking into account the capabilities of
salesmen and nature of districts, the company
estimates that the profit per day in rupees for each
salesman in each district is as below:
District
s
Salesm
an

16

10

14

11

14

11

15

15

15

15

13

12

D
13
12
14
15
Find the assignment of salesmen to various districts which will
yield maximum profit.

Restrictions on Assignments
Four new machines M1, M2, M3 and M4 are to be
installed in a machine shop. There are five vacant places
A,B,C, D and E available. Because of limited space,
machine M2 cannot be placed at C and M3 cannot be
placed at A. The cost of locating machines is shown in
the table. Find the optimal assignment schedule.
A

M1

10

M2

----

M3

----

M4

Place
Machin
e

Additional Problem
A small garment making unit has five tailors
stitching five different types of garments. All the five
tailors are capable of stitching all the five types of
garments. The output per day per tailor and the
profit (Rs) for each type of garment are given below:
Tailor
s

Garments
1

10

10

10

Profit

The Traveling Salesman

Problem

In the traveling salesman problem, there are m

locations (or nodes)
And unit costs (Cij) are associated with traveling
between locations i and j.
The goal is to find the cycle that minimizes the total
(traveling) distance required to visit all locations
(nodes) without visiting any location twice.
The Traveling salesman begins its journey from
his/her home city And visits other cities (in no
particular order) before returning home city.
The nature of the problem is similar to assignment
problem but with additional constraint that no city
is to be visited twice before the tour of all cities is
completed.

Example
A salesman wants to visit cities A, B, C, and D. he does
not want to visit ant city twice before completing the tour
of all the cities and wishes to return to his home city,
starting station. Cost of going from one city to another
city is given in the table. Find the least cost route.
To City

From
city

30

80

50

40

140

30

40

50

20

70

80

130