An extended microcomputer-based network optimization package

Abstract

The capacitated generalized transshipment problem is the most general and universally applicable member of the class of network optimization models. this model subsumes, as specializations, the capacitated transportation problems as well as the pure network specializations of these models, which include the personnel assignment problem, the maximum flow, and shortest path formulations. The generalized network problem, in turn, can be viewed as a specialization of a linear programming problem having at most two non-zero entries in each column of the constraint matrix. A detailed description is given of the implementation of an efficient algorithm and its supporting data structures, used to solve large scale, minimum-cost generalized transshipment problems on an Apple II (64K) microcomputer. A suite of advanced techniques for managing minimum-cost network flow models and inherent data elements will also be discussed.