S.H. Nasseri - Department of Mathematics, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran
R. Chameh - Department of Mathematics, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran
E. Behmanesh - Department of Mathematics, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran

There are two interesting methods, in the literature, for solving fuzzy linear programming problems in which the elements of coefficient matrix of the constraints are represented by real numbers and rest of the parameters are represented by symmetric trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. The first method, named as fuzzy primal simplex method, assumes an initial primal basic feasible solution is at hand. The second method, named as fuzzy dual simplex method, assumes an initial dual basic feasible solution is at hand. In this paper, the shortcomings of these methods are pointed out and to overcome these shortcomings, a new method is proposed to determine the fuzzy optimal solution of such fuzzy problems. The advantages of the proposed method over existing methods are discussed. To illustrate the proposed method a numerical example is solved by using the proposed method and the obtained results are discussed.

Linear programming, symmetric trapezoidal fuzzy number, fuzzy primal simplex method, fuzzy dual simplex method