INTRODUCTION TO

MANAGEMENT
SCIENCE
Quantitative Approaches to Decision Making
Content

▪ Assignment Problem : Hungarian Method

Application

▪ It involves assignment of people to project, job to machine, worker to job, agents to

tasks, sales personnel to sales territories, contracts to bidders, teacher to class, etc
while minimizing total assignment cost/time
▪ One of the important characteristics of assignment problem is that ONE TO ONE
assign
▪ Objective is to minimize cost or time of completing a number of job by a number of
person “D Konig a Hungarian mathematician” HUNGARIAN METHOD
▪ Computing by matrix table (cost/time matrix)
▪ Objects or people – one wished to assign are expressed in Row
▪ Tasks or Things – represent in Column
Assignment Problem (minimize)

Project Leader Clients (Projects’ Period)

1 2 3
Terry 10 15 9
Clare 9 18 5
McCy 6 14 3

How will you assign to Project Leader?

Steps involved in solving minimization problems (cost/time)
Step 1:
▪ See whether number of rows are equal to number of columns. If yes, problem is
balanced one; if not,
▪ then add a Dummy Row or Column to make the problem a balanced one by allotting
zero value to each
▪ cell of the Dummy Row or Column, as the case may be.
Project Clients (Projects’ Period) Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
Leader 1 2 3 Leader 1 2
Terry 10 15 9 Terry 10 15
Clare 9 18 5 Clare 9 18
McCy 6 14 3 McCy 6 14
 Steps involved in solving minimization problems (cost/time)
Step 2:
▪ Row Operation : Subtract the minimum element of each row from all elements of
that row.
▪ Note: If there is zero in each row, there is no need for row subtraction.
Original Time Matrix Table Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
Leader 1 2 3
Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
Leader 1 2 3 Terry 10-9 15-9 9-9
Terry 10 15 9 Clare 9-5 18-5 5-5
Clare 9 18 5 McCy 6-3 14-3 3-3
McCy 6 14 3 Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
Leader 1 2 3
Terry 1 6 0
Clare 4 13 0
Time Matrix Table after row operation
McCy 3 11 0
 Steps involved in solving minimization problems (cost/time)
Step 3:
▪ Column Operation: Subtract the minimum element of each column from all elements
of that column.
▪ Note: If there is zero in each column, there is no need for column subtraction.
Time Matrix Table after row operation Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
Leader 1 2 3
Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
Leader 1 2 3 Terry 1-1 6-6 0
Terry 1 6 0 Clare 4-1 13-6 0
Clare 4 13 0 McCy 3-1 11-6 0
McCy 3 11 0 Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
Leader 1 2 3
Terry 0 0 0
Clare 3 7 0
Time Matrix Table after column operation McCy 2 5 0
Steps involved in solving minimization problems (cost/time)
Step 4:
▪ Draw minimum number of horizontal a n d / o r vertical lines to cover all zeros

Project Clients (Projects’ Period)

Leader Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
1 2 3 Leader 1 2 3
Terry 0 0 0
Terry 0 0 0
Clare 3 7 0
Clare 3 7 0
McCy 2 5 0
McCy 2 5 0

R=C ≠ L
Steps involved in solving minimization problems (cost/time)
▪ Step 5:
▪ If the total lines covering all zeros are equal to the size of the matrix of the Table, we
have got the optimal solution;
▪ if not, subtract the minimum uncovered element from all uncovered elements and
a d d this element to all elements at the intersection point of the lines covering zeros.

Project Clients (Projects’ Period) Project Clients (Projects’ Period)

Leader 1 2 3 Leader 1 2 3
Terry 0 0 0 Terry 0 0 2
Clare 3 7 0 Clare 1 5 0
McCy 2 5 0 McCy 0 3 0
R=C ≠ L
R=C = L
Steps involved in solving minimization problems (cost/time)
Step 6:
▪ Assign Table

Project Clients (Projects’ Period) Project Clients (Projects’ Period)

Leader 1 2 3 Leader 1 2 3
Terry 0 0 2 Terry 0 0 2
Clare 1 5 0 Clare 1 5 0
McCy 0 3 0 McCy 0 3 0

R=C = L
Steps involved in solving minimization problems (cost/time)
Optimal Assignment
Original Time Matrix Table
Project Clients (Projects’ Period) Project Clients (Projects’ Period)
Leader 1 2 3 Leader 1 2 3
Terry 10 15 9 Terry 0 0 2
Clare 9 18 5 Clare 1 5 0
McCy 6 14 3 McCy 0 3 0

From Assign to Time (days)

Terry 2 15
Clare 3 5
McCy 1 6
Minimum Time 26 days
Case Study

▪ Scott and Associates, Inc., is an accounting firm that has three new clients. Project
leaders will be assigned to the three clients. Based on the different backgrounds
and experiences of the leaders, the various leader–client assignm ents differ in terms
of projected com pletion times. The possible assignm ents and the e stimated
completion times in days are a s fo llo ws:

Project Leader Clients (Projects’ Period)

1 2 3
Ja so n 10 16 32
Ellis 14 22 40
Smith 22 24 34

What is the total time required?