Abstract. Modifications to Vogel's Approximation Method for obtaining initial solutions to the unbalanced transportation problem are described by many workers. This paper presents a simple and efficient method that is better than the existing methods, easy to understand and also can give an optimal solution. The proposed method, Improved Zero Point Method (IZPM) (see [13]), is used for solving unbalanced fuzzy transportation problems by assuming that a decision maker is uncertain about the precise values of the transportation cost only. In the proposed method transportation costs are represented by triangular fuzzy numbers. The algorithm of the approach is detailed with suitable numerical examples. Further comparative studies of the new technique with other existing algorithms are established by means of sample problems.

Received: April 4, 2013

AMS Subject Classification: 90C08, 90C90, 90C70, 90B06, 90C29

Key Words and Phrases: unbalanced fuzzy transportation problem, triangular fuzzy number, ranking function, improved zero point method (IZPM)

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