New Optimal Pivot Rule for the Simplex Algorithm

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new pivot rule of the simplex algorithm. The simplex algorithm first presented by George B. Dantzig, is a widely used method for solving a linear programming problem (LP). One of the important steps of the simplex algorithm is applying an appropriate pivot rule to select the basis-entering variable corresponding to the maximum reduced cost. Unfortunately, this pivot rule not only can lead to a critical cycling (solved by Bland’s rules), but does not improve efficiently the objective function. Our new pivot rule 1) solves the cycling problem in the original Dantzig’s simplex pivot rule, and 2) leads to an optimal improvement of the objective function at each iteration. The new pivot rule can lead to the optimal solution of LP with a lower number of iterations. In a maximization problem, Dantzig’s pivot rule selects a basis-entering variable corresponding to the most positive reduced cost; in some problems, it is well-known that Dantzig’s pivot rule, before reaching the optimal solution, may visit a large number of extreme points. Our goal is to improve the simplex algorithm so that the number of extreme points to visit is reduced; we propose an optimal improvement in the objective value per unit step of the basis-entering variable. In this paper, we propose a pivot rule that can reduce the number of such iterations over the Dantzig’s pivot rule and prevent cycling in the simplex algorithm. The idea is to have the maximum improvement in the objective value function: from the set of basis-entering variables with positive reduced cost, the efficient basis-entering variable corresponds to an optimal improvement of the objective function. Using computational complexity arguments and some examples, we prove that our optimal pivot rule is very effective and solves the cycling problem in LP. We test and compare the efficiency of this new pivot rule with Dantzig’s original pivot rule and the simplex algorithm in MATLAB environment.