An Active Learning Exercise for Introducing the Formulation of Linear Programming Models

Abstract

REVIEW OF LITERATURELinear programming (LP) is a standard topic in management science and operations management courses. Harrod (2009) presented a spreadsheet-based implementation of the simplex method that does not require scripts, macros, or Visual Basic programming. His method uses an efficient matrix LP formulation, with separate matrices for basic and non-basic variables. Only two matrix array functions are required, regardless of the number of variables and constraints. At each iteration, students identify the entering and exiting variables, change the matrices accordingly, and check for optimality. Harrod states that this spreadsheet-based formulation should be taught after the fundamentals of algebraic model formulation and the graphical solution method have been covered.The active learning exercise presented in this article is designed to introduce the standard algebraic formulation for an LP model, and to provide a foundation for further instruction in formulating and solving LP models. The exercise addresses a problem that was identified by Murphy and Panchanadam (1999), who found that some students have difficulty formulating LP models because they cannot translate from a word problem to an algebraic model. Providing verbal descriptions, or schema, for various types of LP problems improves student performance but does not eliminate the translation difficulty (Murphy & Panchanadam, 1999)

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