ABSTRACT
This chapter presents interest in linear programming (LP) with a brief and necessarily selective view of its application in various areas of business decision making and discusses the related subjects of sensitivity analysis and parametric linear programming. It describes a number of operational applications of linear programming with the intention of demonstrating both the versatility of LP techniques and the ways in which additional information can usually be extracted from a problem’s optimal solution. The production of shirts involves four processes: cutting, assembly, button-holing/buttoning and inspection/packaging. One company produces three different shirt brands: ‘Westminster’, ‘City’ and ‘Knightsbridge’. The viability of new products can also be examined, at least in a preliminary way, using the original optimal solution as a reference point. For example, imagine a fourth brand of shirt, E, with the following estimated time requirements per dozen shirts in cutting, assembly, button-holing and inspection, respectively: 8, 14, 15 and 6 minutes.
