ABSTRACT

This chapter is devoted to optimization and techniques to support decision making. It explains two main methods: the graphical approach and the simplex algorithm. The simplex subdivides on two main methods: an equationbased approach and a simplex tableau. The simplex matrix-based approach is not included in this review, and interested readers can find it from other sources. The simplex algorithm is applicable to linear problems, and it is a method that departs from a point and walks on the feasible space until it finds the optimal solution, that is, a point that returns the highest (or smallest) value for a given objective. For the following problems, we will concentrate our attention to only one objective and several constraints. The second portion of this chapter is dedicated to explain some techniques to guide decision making.