{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,2]],"date-time":"2026-02-02T15:38:14Z","timestamp":1770046694055,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"1","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IFS"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,11]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>The uncapacitated transportation problem (UTP) deals with minimizing the transportation costs related to the delivery of a homogeneous product from multi-suppliers to multi-consumers. The application of the UTP can be extended to other areas of operations research, including inventory control, personnel assignment, signature matching, product distribution with uncertainty, multi-period production and inventory planning, employment scheduling, and cash management. Such a UTP with interval-defined demands and suppliers capacities (UTPIDS) is investigated in this paper. In UTPIDS, the demands and suppliers capacities may not be known exactly but vary within an interval due to variation in the economic conditions of the global economy. Following the variation, the minimal total cost of the transportation can also be varied within an interval and thus, the cost bounds can be obtained. Here, although the lower bound solution can be attained methodologically, the correct estimation of the worst case realization (the exact upper bound) on the minimal total transportation cost of the UTPIDS is an NP-hard problem. So, the decision-makers seek for minimizing the transportation costs and they are interested in the estimation of the worst case realization on these minimal costs for better decision making especially, for proper investment and return. In literature very few approaches are available to find this estimation of the worst case realization with some shortcomings. First, we demonstrate that the available heuristic methods fail to obtain the correct estimation of the worst case realization always. In this situation, development of a better heuristic method to find the better near optimal estimation of the worst case realization on the minimal total costs of the UTPIDS is desirable. Then this paper provides a new polynomial time algorithm that runs in O (N2) time (N, higher of the numbers of source and destination nodes) for better estimation. A comparative assessment on solutions of available benchmark instances, some randomly generated numerical example problems and a real-world application shows promising performance of the current technique. So, our new finding would definitely be benefited to practitioners, academics and decision makers who deal with such type of decision making instances.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3233\/jifs-202436","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,30]],"date-time":"2021-06-30T05:29:14Z","timestamp":1625030954000},"page":"625-637","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["A new algorithm for solving uncapacitated transportation problem with interval-defined demands and suppliers capacities"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"41","author":[{"given":"Zeinul Abdeen M.","family":"Silmi Juman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka"}]},{"given":"Mahmoud","family":"Masoud","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, Queensland University of Technology, Australia"}]},{"given":"Mohammed","family":"Elhenawy","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, Queensland University of Technology, Australia"}]},{"given":"Hanif","family":"Bhuiyan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, Queensland University of Technology, Australia"},{"name":"Data61, CSIRO"}]},{"given":"Md Mostafizur Rahman","family":"Komol","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, Queensland University of Technology, Australia"}]},{"given":"Olga","family":"Batta\u00efa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Kedge Business School, Talence, France"}]}],"member":"179","reference":[{"key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"100","DOI":"10.1016\/S0377-2217(98)00044-7","article-title":"Multiobjective transportation problem with interval cost, source and destination parameters","volume":"117","author":"Das","year":"1999","journal-title":"European Journal of Operational Research"},{"key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"224","DOI":"10.1002\/sapm1941201224","article-title":"The distribution of a product from several sources to numerous locations","volume":"20","author":"Hitchcock","year":"1941","journal-title":"Journal of Mathematical Physics"},{"issue":"1","key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"19","DOI":"10.4038\/cjs.v48i1.7584","article-title":"An efficient alternative approach to solve a transportation problem","volume":"48","author":"Juman","year":"2019","journal-title":"Ceylon Journal of Science"},{"key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"813","DOI":"10.1016\/j.asoc.2015.05.009","article-title":"A heuristic solution technique to attain the minimal total cost bounds of transporting a homogeneous product with varying demands and supplies","volume":"34","author":"Juman","year":"2015","journal-title":"Applied Soft Computing"},{"key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"146","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ejor.2014.05.004","article-title":"A heuristic solution technique to attain the minimal total cost bounds of transporting a homogeneous product with varying demands and supplies","volume":"239","author":"Juman","year":"2014","journal-title":"European Journal of Operational Research"},{"issue":"1","key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"66","DOI":"10.22452\/mjs.vol32no1.11","article-title":"Sensitivity analysis and an implementation of the well-known Vogel\u2019s approximation method for solving unbalanced transportation problems","volume":"32","author":"Juman","year":"2013","journal-title":"Malaysian Journal of Science"},{"key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref7","unstructured":"Juman Z.A.M.S. , Hoque M.A. , Buhari M.I. , A study of transportation problem and use of object-oriented programming, 3rd International Conference on Applied Mathematics and Pharmaceutical Sciences (ICAMPS\u2019Singapore, (2013b), 353\u2013354."},{"issue":"3","key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref8","first-page":"268","article-title":"When can VAM with balanced feature provide an improved solution to an unbalanced transportation problem?","volume":"135","author":"Juman","year":"2015","journal-title":"European Journal of Scientific Research"},{"key":"10.3233\/JIFS-202436_ref9","unstructured":"Juman Z.A.M.S. , Hoque M.A.A. , Multi-source multi-destination integrated transportation-inventory system. 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