A note on the limiting factor rule and multiple resource constraints

The purpose of this short paper is to alert teachers of management accounting to a perceived inadequacy in the prevailing textbook treatment of a commonly taught and examined management accounting technique, the limiting factor rule, which, in many textbooks, functions as a preface to the exposition of linear programming. Having explained the manner in which the use of the limiting factor rule can lead to the discovery of the optimal production plan where there is just one constrained resource, it is common to assert the necessity of using linear programming in situations where there are multiple resource constraints. In this paper, the possibility of applying the limiting factor rule where more than one resource is constrained is explained more precisely than in existing textbooks. The significance of this discussion, it is suggested, lies as much in its contribution to intellectually sound exposition in textbooks as in its practical significance.