Ain Shams University Senior 1 - Design & Prod. Eng.

Program
Faculty of Engineering MDP333 - Operations Research
Dept. of Design & Prod. Eng. Fall 2022/2023
Tutorial # 1
Linear Programming Formulation & Graphical Solution
1. The Stratton Company produces 2 basic types of plastic pipe. Three resources are crucial to the output of
pipe: extrusion hours, packaging hours, and a special additive to the plastic raw material. The following
data represent next week's situation. All data are expressed in units of 100 feet of pipe.

Product
Resource Resource availability
Type 1 Type 2
Extrusion 4 hr 6 hr 48 hr
Packaging 2 hr 2 hr 18 hr
Additive mix 2 lb 1 lb 16 lb

The contribution to profits and overhead per 100 feet of pipe is $34 for type 1 and $40 for type 2.
Formulate a linear programming model to determine how much of each type of pipe should be produced
to maximize contribution to profits and to overhead. [342]

2. Ozark Farms uses at least 800 lb of special feed daily. The special feed is a mixture of corn and soybean
meal with the following composition:

lb per lb of feedstuff
Feedstuff Cost ($/lb)
Protein Fiber
Corn 0.09 0.02 0.30
Soybean 0.60 0.06 0.90

The dietary requirements of the special feed are at least 30% protein and at most 5% fiber. Ozark Farms
wishes to determine the daily minimum-cost feed mix.
[437.647]

3. The Pacific Paper Company produces paper rolls with a standard width of 20 feet each. Special customer
orders with different widths are produced by slitting the standard rolls. Typical orders (which may vary
from day to day) are summarized in the following table:

Order Desired width (ft) Desired number of rolls

1 5 150
2 7 200
3 9 300

In practice, an order is filled by setting the knives to the desired widths. Usually, there are a number of
ways in which a standard roll can be slit to fill a given order.
Formulate the problem in order to determine the optimum combination of settings (among all possible
settings) that minimizes the trim loss.
[410 (integer)]

4. Progress City is studying the feasibility of introducing a mass transit bus system that will alleviate the
smog problem by reducing in-city driving. The study seeks the determination of the minimum number of
buses that can handle the transportation needs. After gathering necessary information, the city engineer
noticed that the minimum number of buses needed fluctuates with the time of the day and that the
required number of buses can be approximated by constant values over successive 4-hour intervals. The
following figure summarizes the engineer’s findings. To carry out the required daily maintenance, each
bus can operate only 8 successive hours a day.

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Ain Shams University Senior 1 - Design & Prod. Eng. Program
Faculty of Engineering MDP333 - Operations Research
Dept. of Design & Prod. Eng. Fall 2022/2023

Formulate the problem to determine the number of operating buses in each shift that will meet the
minimum demand while minimizing the total number of buses in operation.
[26]

5. MG Auto has three plants in Los Angeles, Detroit, and New Orleans, and two major distribution centers
in Denver and Miami. The capacities of the three plants during the next quarter are 1000, 1500, and 1200
cars. The quarterly demands at the two distribution centers are 2300 and 1400 cars. The mileage chart
between the plants and the distribution centers is given in the following table:
Denver Miami
Los Angeles 1000 2690
Detroit 1250 1350
New Orleans 1275 850
The trucking company in charge of transporting the cars charges 8 cents per mile per car. Determine an
optimum transportation plan.
[313200]

6. The SAVE-IT COMPANY operates a reclamation center that collects four types of solid waste materials
and treats them so that they can be amalgamated into a salable product. (Treating and amalgamating are
separate processes.) Three different grades of this product can be made, depending upon the mix of the
materials used. Although there is some flexibility in the mix for each grade, quality standards may
specify the minimum or maximum amount allowed for the proportion of a material in the product grade.
(This proportion is the weight of the material expressed as a percentage of the total weight for the
product grade.) For each of the two higher grades, a fixed percentage is specified for one of the
materials. These specifications are given in the following table along with the cost of amalgamation and
the selling price for each grade.

Amalgamation
Grade Specification Selling Price [$/lb]
Cost [$/lb]
Material 1: Not more than 30% of total
Material 2: Not less than 40% of total
A 3.00 8.50
Material 3: Not more than 50% of total
Material 4: Exactly 20% of total
Material 1: Not more than 50% of total
B Material 2: Not less than 10% of total 2.50 7.00
Material 4: Exactly 10% of total
C Material 1: Not more than 70% of total 2.00 5.50

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Ain Shams University Senior 1 - Design & Prod. Eng. Program
Faculty of Engineering MDP333 - Operations Research
Dept. of Design & Prod. Eng. Fall 2022/2023
The reclamation center collects its solid waste materials from regular sources and so is normally able to
maintain a steady rate for treating them. The following table gives the quantities available for collection
and treatment each week, as well as the cost of treatment, for each type of material.

Available Pounds Treatment Cost

Material Additional Restrictions
per Week [$/lb]
1 3,000 3.00 1. For each material, at least half of the available
2 2,000 6.00 pounds per week should be collected and treated.
3 4,000 4.00 2. $30,000 per week should be used to treat these
4 1,000 5.00 materials.
The Save-It Co. is solely owned by Green Earth, an organization devoted to dealing with environmental
issues, so Save-It’s profits are used to help support Green Earth’s activities. Green Earth has raised
contributions and grants, amounting to $30,000 per week, to be used exclusively to cover the entire
treatment cost for the solid waste materials. The board of directors of Green Earth has instructed the
management of Save-It to divide this money among the materials in such a way that at least half of the
amount available of each material is actually collected and treated. These additional restrictions are listed
in the previous table.
Management wants to determine the amount of each product grade to produce and the exact mix of
materials to be used for each grade. The objective is to maximize the net weekly profit (total sales
income minus total amalgamation cost), exclusive of the fixed treatment cost of $30,000 per week that is
being covered by gifts and grants.

7. Oxbridge University maintains a powerful mainframe computer for research use by its faculty, Ph.D.
students, and research associates. During all working hours, an operator must be available to operate and
maintain the computer, as well as to perform some programming services. Beryl Ingram, the director of
the computer facility, oversees the operation.
It is now the beginning of the fall semester, and Beryl is confronted with the problem of assigning
different working hours to her operators. Because all the operators are currently enrolled in the
university, they are available to work only a limited number of hours each day, as shown in the following
table.

Maximum hours of Availability

Operator Wage Rate [$/hr]
Mon. Tue. Wed. Thurs. Fri.
K. C. 10.00 6 0 6 0 6
D. H. 10.10 0 6 0 6 0
H. B. 9.90 4 8 4 0 4
S. C. 9.80 5 5 5 0 5
K. S. 10.80 3 0 3 8 0
N. K. 11.30 0 0 0 6 2

There are six operators (four undergraduate students and two graduate students). They all have different
wage rates because of differences in their experience with computers and in their programming ability.
The previous table shows their wage rates, along with the maximum number of hours that each can work
each day.
Each operator is guaranteed a certain minimum number of hours per week that will maintain an adequate
knowledge of the operation. This level is set arbitrarily at 8 hours per week for the undergraduate
students (K. C., D. H., H. B., and S. C.) and 7 hours per week for the graduate students (K. S. and N. K.).

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Ain Shams University Senior 1 - Design & Prod. Eng. Program
Faculty of Engineering MDP333 - Operations Research
Dept. of Design & Prod. Eng. Fall 2022/2023
The computer facility is to be open for operation from 8 A.M . to 10 P.M. Monday through Friday with
exactly one operator on duty during these hours. On Saturdays and Sundays, the computer is to be
operated by other staff.
Because of a tight budget, Beryl has to minimize cost. She wishes to determine the number of hours she
should assign to each operator on each day.
Formulate a linear programming model for this problem.
[709.6]

8. Reddy Mikks produces both interior and exterior paints from two raw materials, M1 and M2. The
following table provides the basic data of the problem:

Tons of raw material per ton of Maximum daily

Exterior paint Interior paint availability (tons)
Raw material (M1) 6 4 24
Raw material (M2) 1 2 6
Profit per ton ($1000) 5 4

A market survey indicates that the daily demand for interior paint cannot exceed that of exterior paint by
more than 1 ton. Also, the maximum daily demand of interior paint is 2 tons.
Reddy Mikks wants to determine the optimum (best) product mix of interior and exterior paints that
maximizes the total daily profit.
[21]
a) Find the range of change in each coefficient of the objective function, separately, that maintain the
same optimum solution.
b) Determine the feasibility range for each binding constraint.
c) Determine the shadow price for each resource.

9. JOBCO produces two products on two machines. A unit of product 1 requires 2 hours on machine 1 and
1 hour on machine 2. For product 2, a unit requires 1 hour on machine 1 and 3 hours on machine 2. The
revenues per unit of products 1 and 2 are L.E. 30 and L.E. 20, respectively. The total daily processing
time available for each machine is 8 hours.
[128]
a) If JOBCO can increase the capacity of both machines, which machine should receive higher priority?
b)A suggestion is made to increase the capacities of machines 1 and 2 at the additional cost of 10 L.E./hr.
Is this advisable?
c) If the capacity of machine 1 is increased from the present 8 hours to 13 hours, how will this increase
affect the optimum revenue?
d)Suppose that the capacity of machine 1 is increased to 20 hours, how will this increase affect the
optimum revenue?
e) Suppose that the unit revenues for products 1 and 2 are changed to L.E. 35 and L.E. 25, respectively.
Will the current optimum remain the same?
f) Suppose that the unit revenue of product 2 is fixed at its current value of L.E. 20. What is the
associated range for the unit revenue of product 1 that will keep the optimum unchanged?

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