Walking Through a Columnar Approach to Linear Programming of a Business

Most Management Science students have been taught In formulate a linear programming model by writing a set of (row) equations. While this technique is suitable for the vast majority of problems usually encountered in industry, it falls short when an entire company must be modeled. In this article, a methodology for formulating linear programming models is presented which, though not new, has been largely ignored by authors of textbooks and the academic community. The author maintains that this approach could substantially improve interest in and comprehension of mathematical programming and provide a useful supplement to the Management Science curriculum.