The fixed-charge problem is a nonlinear programming problem of practical interest in business and industry. One of its variations is the fixed-charge transportation problem (FCTP) where fixed cost is incurred for every route that is used in the solution, along with the variable cost that is...

In this note we present a variant of the improved algebraic method (IAM) using a duality analysis to solve linear programming (LP) problems where more insights to the method are presented. When the coordinates of all vertices are computed, any feasible point can be expressed as a linear...

In this pedagogical note we present an improved method to solve and analyze linear programming (LP) problems. The method depends on solving a system of equations and is free of any slack, surplus or artificial variables. The proposed method eliminates the need to manipulate linear inequalities...

The more-for-less (MFL) phenomenon in distribution problems occurs when it is possible to ship more total goods for less (or equal) total cost, while shipping the same quantity or more from each origin and to each destination. This paradox occurs often in fixed-charge transportation problems...

Eilon and Christofides (E & C), in their paper on "The Loading Problem" [Eilon, S., N. Christofides. 1971. The loading problem. Management Sci. 17(5, January) 259-268.], suggest a solution using a heuristic algorithm. In this note we would like to present a simpler heuristic algorithm which is...

This paper presents a branching method for the solution of the fixed charge transportation problem. Starting with a linear formulation of the problem, we develop the method which converges to the optimal solution. The method is based on the computation of a lower bound and an upper bound...

In this paper we formulate fixed-charge problems with polynomials. Using polynomial formulations we show structural similarity between different kinds of linear and fixed charge formulations. We also show the benefits of applying polynomial formulation for finding an approximate solution for...

In this paper we present a new approximation for computing lower bound for the fixed charge transportation problem (FCTP). The lower bounds thus generated delivered 87% optimal solutions for 56 randomly generated small, up to 6×10 in size, problems in an experimental design. For somewhat...

In this paper, we develop a simple algorithm for obtaining the global solution to a small scale fixed-charge transportation problem (FCTP). The procedure itself is very quick. The proposed method solves FCTP by decomposing the problem into series of smaller sub-problems, which is novel and can...