Revision Exercise (Final Exam)

Question 1

Refer to the sensitivity information for the Kelson Sporting Equipment problem above.
a) Determine the objective coefficient ranges.
b) Interpret the ranges in part (a).
c) Interpret the right-hand-side ranges.
d) How much will the value of the optimal solution improve if 20 extra hours of
packaging and shipping time are made available?

Question 2

Based on the sensitivity report above, answer the following questions.

a) What is the optimal solution, and what is the value of the objective function?
b) Which constraints are binding? Why?
c) Which constraint shows extra capacity? How much?
d) If the profit for the deluxe model were increased to $150 per unit, would the optimal
solution change?

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Question 3
Tucker Inc. produces high-quality units and sport coats for men. Each suit requires 1.2 hours
of cutting time and 0.7 hours of sewing time, uses 6 yards of material, and provides a profit
contribution of $190. Each sport coat requires 0.8 hours of cutting time and 0.6 hours of
sewing time, uses 4 yards of material, and provides a profit contribution of $150. For the
coming week, 200 hours of cutting time, 180 hours of sewing time, and 1200 yards of fabric
material are available. Additional cutting and sewing time can be obtained by scheduling
overtime for these operations. Each hour of overtime for the cutting operation increases the
hourly cost by $15, and each hour of overtime for the sewing operation increases the hourly
cost by $10. A maximum of 100 hours of overtime can be scheduled. Marketing requirement
specify a minimum production of 100 suits and 75 sport coats. Let
S = number of suits produced
SC = number of sport coats produced
D1 = hours of overtime for the cutting operation
D2 = hours of overtime for the sewing operation

Based on the sensitivity report above, answer the following questions.

a) What is the optimal solution, and what is the total profit? What is the plan for the use
of overtime?
b) A price increase for suits is being considered that would result in a profit contribution
of $210 per suit. If this price increase is undertaken, how will the optimal solution
change?
c) Discuss the need for additional material during the coming week. If a rush order for
material can be placed at the usual price plus an extra $8 per yard for handling, would
you recommend that the company consider placing a rush order for material (4 yards
per suit, 6 yards per coat)? What is the maximum price Tucker would be willing to
pay for an additional yard of material? How many additional yards of material should
Tucker consider ordering?
d) Suppose the minimum production requirement for suits is lowered to 75. Would this
change help or hurt profit? Explain.

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Question 4
Industrial Designs has been awarded a contract to design a label for a new carbonate drink
produced by Lake View Beverage. The company estimates that 150 hours is required to
complete the project. The firm’s three graphic designers available for assignment to this
project are Lisa, a senior designer and team leader; David, a senior designer; and Sarah, a
junior designer. Because Lisa has worked on several projects for Lake View Beverage,
management specified that Lisa must be assigned at least 40% of the total number of hours
assigned to the two senior designers. To provide label-designing experience for Sarah, Sarah
must be assigned at least 15% of the total project time. However, the number of hours
assigned to Sarah must not exceed 25% of the total number of hours assigned to the two
senior designers. Due to other project commitments, Lisa has a maximum of 50 hours
available to work on this project. Hourly wage rates are $30 for Lisa, $25 for David, and $18
for Sarah.

a) Formulate a linear program that can be used to determine the number of hours each
graphic designer should be assigned to the project in order to minimize total cost.
b) How many hours should each graphic designer be assigned to the project? What is the
total cost?
c) Suppose Lisa could be assigned more than 50 hours. What effect would this have on
the optimal solution? Explain.
d) If Sarah were not required to work a minimum number of hours on this project, would
the optimal solution change? Explain.

Question 5
Consider the following LP :
max 4 x 1+ x 2
s.t.
x 1+ 2 x 2=6
x 1−x 2 ≥ 3

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2 x1 + x 2 ≤ 10
x1 , x2 ≥ 0
Find the dual for this LP.

Question 6
Consider the following LP :
max z=5 x 1+ x2 +2 x 3
s.t.
x 1+ x2 + x 3 ≤ 6
6 x 1 + x3 ≤ 8
x 2+ x3 ≤ 2
x1, x2 , x3≥ 0
a) Find the dual for this LP.

b) This sensitivity analysis report is based on the dual of the LP. What is the value of the
optimal solution of the primal LP?

Question 7
A company produces two products made from aluminum and copper. The table below gives
the unit requirements, the unit production man-hours required, the unit profit and the
availability of the resources (in tons).
  Aluminum Copper Man-hours Unit Profit
Product 1 1 0 2 50
Product 2 1 1 3 60
Available 10 6 24

The MS Excel Solver provided the following solution output:

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 Variable Cells
    Final Reduced Objective Allowable Allowable
Cell Name Value Cost Coefficient Increase Decrease
X1 Product 1 6 0 50 10 10
X2 Product 2 4 0 60 15 10

Constraints
  Final Shadow Constraint Allowable Allowable
Cell Name Value Price R.H. Side Increase Decrease
1 Aluminium 10 30 10 2 1
2 Copper 4 0 6 1E+30 2
3 Man-hours 24 10 24 2 4

a) What is the optimal production schedule?

b) Within what range for the profit on product 2 will the solution in (a) remain optimal?
What is the optimal profit when c2 = 70 (coefficient for X2)?
c) Suppose that simultaneously the unit profits on x1 and x2 changed from 50 to 55 and 60
to 65 respectively. Would the optimal solution change?
d) Explain the meaning of the "Shadow Price" column. Given the optimal solution, why
should the shadow price for Copper be 0?
e) What is the increase in the value of the objective function for an extra unit of
aluminum?
f) Man-hours were not figured into the unit profit as it must pay three workers for eight
hours of work regardless of the number of man-hours used. What is the shadow price
for man-hours? Interpret.
g) On the other hand, aluminum and copper are resources that are ordered as needed. The
10 units of aluminum cost the company $100. What is the most the company should be
willing to pay for extra aluminium if the cost of the aluminium is the “relevant cost”?

Question 8
The program manager for a TV station would like to determine the best way to allocate the
time for an evening news broadcast. Specifically, she would like to determine the number of
minutes of broadcast time to devote to local news, national news, weather, and sports. Over
the 30-minute broadcast, 10 minutes are set aside for advertising. The station’s broadcast
policy states the following:

 At least 15% of the time available should be devoted to local news coverage;
 The total time devoted to local news and national news must be at least 50% of the
total time available;
 The time devoted to the weather segment must be less than or equal to the time
devoted to the sports segment;
 The time devoted to the sports segment should be no longer than the total time spent
on the local and national news; and
 At least 20% of the time should be devoted to the weather segment.

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The production costs per minute are $300 for local news, $200 for national news, $100 for
weather, and $100 for sports.

The manager would like to determine how the 20 available minutes should be used to
minimize the total cost of producing the program. The sensitivity analysis report are shown
below:

a) Formulate the LP of this problem.

b) Based on the output given, how should she allocate the different segments? What is the total cost?
c) Interpret the shadow price for the constraint corresponding to the requirement that at least 15% of
the available time should be devoted to local news. What advice would you give the station
manager given this shadow price?
d) 5 minutes were allocated for the weather segment according to the optimal solution. Given the
minimum requirements of 4 minutes, what does this indicate?
e) What is the new cost if the production cost per minute for sports increased to $150?
f) What is the new cost if the production cost per minute for national news decreased to $90?
g) Would decreasing the 20% requirement for the weather segment affect the total cost? Why or why
not?

Question 9
Wes Wheeler is the production manager of Wheeler Wheels, Inc.  Wes has just received
orders for 1,000 standard wheels and 1,250 deluxe wheels next month and for 800 standard
and 1,500 deluxe wheels the following month.  All orders are to be filled.

The cost of producing standard wheels is $10 and deluxe wheels is $16.  Overtime rates are
50% higher.  There are 1,000 hours of regular time and 500 hours of overtime available each
month.  It takes .5 hour to make a standard wheel and .6 hour to make a deluxe wheel.  The
cost of storing one wheel from one month to the next is $2.

Wes Wheeler wants to develop a two-month production schedule for standard and deluxe
wheels.  Formulate this production planning problem as a linear program.

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Question 10
Suppose that the annual operating cost and replacement cost of a machine are as shown in the
table below. If I have a new machine now, determine a replacement policy that minimizes the
net cost of owning and operating a machine for the next five years, and leaves me with a new
machine at the end of year 5.

Age of
Machine 1 2 3 4 5
(Years)
Operating
250 400 600 750 900
Cost
Replacement
1,500 2,500 3,500 4,500 5,500
Cost

Question 11
Show both the network and the linear programming formulation for this assignment problem.

Task
Person A B C D
1 9 5 4 2
2 12 6 3 5
3 11 6 5 7

Question 12
A network of railway lines connects the main lines entering and leaving a city. Speed limits,
track reconstruction, and train length restrictions lead to the flow diagram below, where the
numbers represent how many cars can pass per hour. Formulate an LP to find the maximal
flow in cars per hour from Node 1 to Node F.

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Question 13
Use the Big M method to solve the following LP problem.

Min z  x1  2 x2  3 x3
s.t.
3 x1  x2  x3  3
2 x1  x2  3 x3  4
5 x1  x2  1
x1 , x2 , x3  0

Question 14
Use the Big M method to solve the following LP problem.

Max z  4 x1  3 x2  3x3
s.t.
2 x1  x2  5 x3  15
x1  x2  3 x3  32
x1  14
x1 , x2 , x3  0