What is really needed is a range of alternatives, with advantages and disadvantages of each, so that management can make a logical choice. Sensitivity Analysis can assist in generating alternatives and in planning for responses to unpredictable changes. It is a direct tool to help in flexibility planning. Every primal LP problem has a counterpart problem called its dual .
Duality provides the foundation for sensitivity analysis.
Form the dual objective function coefficients from the primal RHS values. Form the ith dual constraint from the ith column of coefficients in the primal constraints. Form the dual RHS constraint values from the primal objective function coefficients. In the primal problem, the objective function maximizes the total contribution to profit or minimizes the total cost. Likewise, a primal constraint assures that the availability of a primal resource is not exceeded, and the dual constraints ensure that the marginal values of the required resources for each product must be at least that of the product's profit contribution.