Quantitative Analysis for Management, 13/e

7.1 Requirements of a Linear Programming Problem

Over the past 70 years, LP has been applied extensively to military, industrial, financial, marketing, accounting, and agricultural problems. Even though these applications are diverse, all LP problems have several properties and assumptions in common.

All problems seek to maximize or minimize some quantity, usually profit or cost. We refer to this property as the objective function of an LP problem. The major objective of a typical manufacturer is to maximize dollar profits. In the case of a trucking or railroad distribution system, the objective might be to minimize shipping costs. In any event, this objective must be stated clearly and defined mathematically. It does not matter, by the way, ...