Question

One disadvantage of using North-West corner rule to find initial solution to the transportation problem is that
A. it is complicated to use
B. it does not take into account cost of transportation
C. it leads to a degenerate initial solution
D. all of the above

Answer 1

Hint: the North-West Corner Rule is a method adopted to compute the initial feasible solution of the transportation problem. The name north-west corner is given to this method because the basic variables are selected from the extreme left corner. The prerequisite condition for solving the transportation problem is that demand should be equal to the supply.

Complete answer:
One disadvantage of using the North-West corner rule to find initial solutions to the transportation problem is that it does not take into account cost of transportation. North-west is an easy way to find a solution and works efficiently most of the time. But there isn’t any superiority among these methods. Basically it depends on the problem.
  Therefore, option B. is the correct option.

Note: steps in north-west corner rule
1. Select the upper left hand corner cell of the transportation table and allocate as many units as possible equal to the minimum between available supply and demand.
2. Adjust the supply and demand numbers in the respective rows and columns.
3. If the demand for the first cell is satisfied, then move horizontally to the next cell in the second column.
4. If the supply for the first row is exhausted then move down to the first cell in the second row.
5. If for any cell, supply equals demand then the next allocation can be made in cell either in the next row or column.
6. Continue the process until all supply and demand values are exhausted.