A model for allocated versus actual costs in assignment and transportation problems

We present a simple mathematical model which will relate the actual cost spent in accomplishing a task to the dollars budgeted for that task. In the specific instances of assignment and transportation problems we show how to minimize total dollars spent given total dollars allocated. We show furthermore how to quantitatively measure the work done along each arc in such problems. The total work, which will measure how fixed costs are realized across various arcs for a given prescribed effort, can then be minimized. It is shown that this, in general, leads to a third type of optimal solution which is different from those optimal solutions obtained by minimizing either total cost or total dollars allocated.