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CMA Intermediate · Operations Management and Strategic Management · Job Evaluation, Job Allocation - Assignment

A firm has 4 jobs but only 3 machines, and each machine can take exactly one job. Cost of each job-machine pair is known. What is the standard first step before applying the Hungarian method?

Add a dummy machine with zero costs for all jobs so the matrix becomes square. The job assigned to the dummy machine remains undone. This balances the problem without altering real costs, after which the Hungarian method can be applied normally.

  1. AAdd a dummy machine with zero cost for every job, making the matrix 4 × 4Correct
  2. BDelete the job with the highest average cost so the matrix becomes 3 × 3
  3. CAdd a dummy machine with a very large cost for every job
  4. DMultiply all costs by -1 and then apply the method

Explanation

An unbalanced assignment problem is balanced by adding dummy rows or columns. Here a dummy machine column is added with zero costs. The job allocated to the dummy machine is simply left unassigned. Deleting a job changes the problem, and a large cost would distort the result.

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