In: Operations Management
Linear Programming
What is an objective function?
What is a constraint?
What is slack?
What is a shadow price (a.k.a. dual price)?
Answering the first 4 sub-questions as per Chegg Guidelines:
1. In linear programming, objective function is the function based on which the profits of the company or instance can be maximized and the losses can be minimized. This is usually done by playing on the relationship of a set of constraints, pre-specified in the model.
2. Constraint is the limiting value based on which the value of the objective function can be modified and decided upon. Constraint can take the form of equalities or they can be inequalities.
3. In a linear programming model, a slack variable is used to convert a constraint from inequality form to equality form. The introduction of slack variables in the model help in achieving an optimization solution, quite easily.
4. Shadow prices, basically are the coefficients of the objective function which are associated with the slack or surplus variable, so as to arrive at an optimal solution.