What are the Various methods of finding the Basic Feasible Solution in Transportation problem?

Various method of finding the Basic Feasible Solution in Transportation problem.  (Oct 2004)

A} Methods based on position of the cells-

1. NWCR North West Corner Rule – Starting the allocations from top left corner (North West corner).

2. SECR South East Corner Rule – Starting the allocations from bottom right corner (South East corner).

These methods are ineffective because they are based on position. They do not take transportation cost into account. Hence, answer found by these methods will give higher cost which is much more than optimal cost.

B} Methods based on cost –

3. LCM Least cost method – In LCM we start allocations from the cell with minimum cost. Then we go to next minimum cost and so on.

4. VAM Vogel’s approximation method – In VAM we calculate penalties for each row and column. Penalty is the difference between two lowest costs in the row or column. We start giving allocations from maximum penalty.

These methods are very effective because they take costs into account. The preference is given to those cells which have lower costs. Hence, the answer is close to the optimal solution.