Exercise on Transportation & Assignment
Chapter 10, BSNS2120, J. Wang
Name ___________________________
1. What is (are) the input(s) for solving a transportation problem?
a. Demands of destinations.
b. Capacity of sources.
c. Unit transportation cost from each source to each destination.
d. All of above.
2. What do we want to know from the result of QM for a transportation problem?
a. Demand of each destination
b. Capacity of each source.
c. How many units are shipped from each source to each destination.
d. All of above.
3. The optimal solution of a transportation model provides a shipping pattern with the lowest total
shipping cost.
a. True
b. False
4. In the data-entering table of QM’s transportation model, a source takes a ________.
a. row
b. column
5. In a transportation problem, number of sources must be same as number of destinations.
a. True
b. False
6. In a transportation problem, the total demand of destinations must be identical to the total
capacity of sources, otherwise QM cannot solve it.
a. True
b. False
7. In the result of QM’s transportation model, if it shows that Source 2 should ship 45 units to a
“dummy” destination, then it means that ___________.
a. those 45 units will be lost in shipping.
b. there are 45 units excessive at Source 2, and will stay with Source 2.
c. there are 45 units excessive at Source 2, and will be shipped to a third place to stock.
8. In the result of QM’s transportation model, if it shows that 20 of the demand of Destination 3
will be satisfied by a “dummy” source, then it means that ___________.
a. those 20 units will be shipped to Destination 3 but lost in shipping.
b. there are 20 units excessive at the dummy source.
c. Destination 3 will have 20 units shortage.
d. Destination 3 will have 20 units extra.
9. Dummy source or dummy destination will occur in the case of ____________.
a. unbalanced transportation problem
b. number of sources  number of destinations
c. an error in data.
10. If it is not allowed to ship any from Source 2 to Destination 4, then we should _________.
a. enter a very big shipping cost for the route from Source 2 to Destination 4.
b. enter a very small shipping cost for the route from Source 2 to Destination 4.
c. simply enter 0 for the route from Source 2 to Destination 4.
11. What do we want to know from the result of QM for the assignment model?
a. Who is doing which job.
b. Demand of each job.
c. Capacity of each person.
d. All of above.
12. In the assignment model, each person can be assigned to one and only one job.
a. True
b. False
13. In the assignment model, each job will be done by one and only one person.
a. True
b. False
14. If person A is not allowed to do job Y, then we should ________________.
a. enter a very big number for the cell (A – Y), if the total cost is minimized.
b. enter a very small number for the cell (A – Y), if the total benefit is maximized.
c. Both a and b are correct.
15. The assignment problem can be viewed as a special transportation problem in which every
source has capacity 1 and every destination has demand 1.
a. True
b. False
16. The transportation problem can be viewed as an assignment problem and solved by using the
assignment model.
a. True
b. False
Answer: 1.d 2.c 3.a 4.a 5.b 6.b 7.b 8.c 9.a 10.a 11.a 12.a 13.a 14.c 15.a 16.b