The Simplex Method applied to a Warehouse Problem The simplex method is a mathematical tool used to solve many of today’s problems involving such ideas as maximizing profits or minimizing costs (Barnett, Ziegler, & Byleen, 2011). Most of these problems have such a vast amount of variables and constraints that these problems are more ideally suited for computers to solve (Barnett, Ziegler, & Byleen, 2011). Since the amount of variables and constraints doesn’t effect how the simplex method is applied then a simpler problem can be used to demonstrate how the simplex method works. The problem used in this case will involve two shipping departments in a warehouse. In this case one department ships items that require refrigeration and the other department ships items that don’t have this restriction. Each department has a certain amount of employees assigned to that department that fill the individual orders throughout the day called orderfillers. However the orderfillers can be moved from one department to the other in order to help minimize the overall hours of both departments for finishing the day’s orders. Each individual orderfiller has their own individual rate for moving the cases measured in cases per hour but for this problem average rates will be used. The average rate of production for a refrigerated department orderfiller will drop if that orderfiller is used in the non-refrigerated department and the same applies for an orderfiller moved from the non-refrigerated department over to the refrigerated department. The optimal solution involves getting as many orderfillers as possible a ten hour workday. So what to determine is how many orderfillers of what type need to be in each department as well as how many orderfillers overall need to be kept to work a full day and how many can be let go home. In order to show the equations associated with