Operations Research

Discussant Summary on Assignment Problem

By Group 7 – Shradha Agrawal.

Ayush Raj.
Siddharth Chandrana.
Shubhie Verma
Question 1-
From Which existing model the assignment problem is derived & what is the basic
difference between them ?
Answer 1-
Assignment problem is derived from transportation model & the basic difference is we
assign only a single job to a person or machine. While, in transportation plants could supply
to many different destinations.
Question 2-
How do we convert a maximisation problem to a minimization problem ?
Answer 2-
We take the maximum profit element & subtract all the other profit elements from it & then
change the original values with the difference.
Question 3-
What are the limitations of assignment problem ?
Answer 3-
Assignment becomes a problem because each job requires different skills and the capacity
or efficiency of each person with respect to these jobs can be different. This gives rise to
cost differences. If each person is able to do all jobs equally efficiently then all costs will be
the same and each job can be assigned to any person.
When assignment is a problem it becomes a typical optimization problem it can therefore
be compared to a transportation problem. The cost elements are given and is a square
matrix and requirement at each destination is one and availability at each origin is also one.
In addition, we have number of origins which equals the number of destinations hence the
total demand equals total supply . There is only one assignment in each row and each
column .However If we compare this to a transportation problem, we find that a general
transportation problem does not have the above-mentioned limitations. These limitations
are peculiar to assignment problem only.
Question 4-
How to decide which one is a better intermediate node among all the nodes or medium
channel to reach the final point ?
Answer 4-
Generally, Minimum cost & Minimum travel route is preferred. Then if there is any delivery
between then that particular intermediary route is selected.

Question 5-
Is there is any usage of assignment problem in real life ?
Answer 5-
In real life this assignment problem is widely used as transportation and shipment problem
to manage the demand & supply between factories.