Linear Programming in Industry Theory and Applications. An Introduction

The present volume is intended to serve a twofold purpose. First, it provides a university text of Linear Programming for students of or operations research interested in the theory of production economics and cost and its practical applications; secondly, it is the author's hope that engineers, business executives, managers, and others responsible for the organization and planning of industrial operations may find the book useful as an introduction to Linear Programming methods and techniques. Despite the different backgrounds of these categories of potential readers, their respective fields overlap to a considerable extent; both are concerned with economic optimization problems, and the use of Linear Programming to problems of production planning is simply applied theory of production. The non-economist reader may, but should not, pass over Chapter IV in which the linear production model is linked up with the economic theory of production. Without being an advanced text, the book aims at covering enough ground to make the reader capable of detecting, formulating, and solving such linear planning problems as he may encounter within his particular field. No heavy demands are made on the reader's mathematical profi ciency; except for the proofs in the Appendix-which may be skipped ü desired-the mathematical exposition is purely elementary, involving only simple linear relations. In the author's experience, the pedagogical advantages of this approach, as compared with the use of matrix algebra, amply justify the sacrilice of mathematical elegance and typographical simplicity, particularly in explaining the simplex method.