ABSTRACT
Linear program problems share a characteristic of operational research in that they arise in many situations, but are not always in a recognizable form. It is a necessary part of the operational research scientist’s training to recognize that a problem area can be modelled by a linear program. Blending of animal feedstuffs is widely practised with linear programming techniques. The allocation of work orders to machines in a general machine shop may be determined so as to minimize through-time or in-process stock. The transportation technique described earlier has been used for many transport applications—for instance, by the National Coal Board for allocating colliery outputs to a range of electric power stations so as to minimize haulage costs. The main developments in linear programming have come from the large oil companies, particularly Shell and British Petroleum. The interrelationships of economic variables are generally too complex for efficient control using only single averages.
