E-SOFT - A VERY SIMPLE AND INNOVATIVE METHOD FOR SOLVING UNBALANCED ASSIGNMENT PROBLEMS

In this paper, we have proposed a noveland innovative method entitled E-SOFT fordetermining the optimal assignment plans to the unbalanced assignment problems (UAPs) and viewed its performance with the existing Hungarian method and the Mantra technique. The ESOFT algorithm has beeninheritedfrom the existing SOFTMIN algorithm developed for solving transportation problems and also extended for solving the UAPs.The Extended SOFTMIN method is in short termed as E-SOFT method. The performance of the proposed E-SOFT method over the Hungarian and Mantra methods has been tested on a set of 20 identified UAPs. Experimental results validate that the E-SOFT is an alternative simple method to solve UAPs.