Network Application in Industry and Government

Abstract

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide the practitioner tools to use in modeling decision making situations as network flow problems. These tools are presented as part of the discussion of recent industrial and governmental applications. The intent is not to enumerate all applications of networks, but rather to give the reader a flavor of the versatility and usability of networks. An additional objective is to acquaint the reader with the process of visualizing a problem by means of network diagrams, thereby making it possible to capture important interrelationships in an easily understood “pictorial” framework. A secondary purpose is to familiarize the reader with recent computational advances in the development of computer codes to solve these problems. For example, recent breakthroughs in the solution and human engineering aspects of minimum cost flow transshipment problems have made it possible to solve problems that require many hours of computing time with state-of-the-art commercial LP packages in only a few minutes.