Operation Research

Q-1 A Sales Manager wishes to assign four sales territories to four sales persons. The Sales person differ in
their Sales acumen and consequently the sales expected to be effected in each territory are different for
each sales person. The estimates of sales per month in thousands of rupees for each sales person in each
territory are given below. Find the optimal assignment.

Sales Person/Sales
T1 T2 T3 T4
territories
P 56 25 32 45
Q 45 21 54 26
R 21 54 36 45
S 34 35 28 52

Answer: Rs. 216000

Q-2 The Vice President for product management has four new products to assign to product managers. To
keep workload balanced, each product is to be assigned to a different person. There are five product
managers.
The Vice president has estimated, as a percentage, the extent to which each product matches the product
Manager’s experience. The estimates are shown below:

Product Managers
Products R S T U V
A 7 50 90 60 70
B 10 40 80 80 90
C 80 60 90 80 50
D 60 90 70 80 80

How should the assignments be made?

Answer: A-T-90%,
B-V-90%,
C-U-80%,
D-S-90%
Q-3 A department has four employees with four jobs to be performed. The time (in hours) each man will take
to perform each job is given in the cost matrix.

I II III IV
A 10 5 13 15
B 3 9 18 13
C 10 7 2 2
D 7 11 9 7

How should the jobs be allocated, one per employee, so as to minimize the total man hours?
Answer: 17 hrs

Q-4 A Sales Manager wishes to assign four sales territories to four sales persons. The Sales person differ in
their Sales acumen and consequently the sales expected to be effected in each territory are different for
each sales person. The estimates of sales per month in thousands of rupees for each sales person in each
territory are given below. Find the optimal assignment.
Sales Person/Sales territories W X Y Z
A 120 140 145 130
B 150 140 155 140
C 145 140 142 150
D 148 150 142 145

Answer: Rs. 595000

Q-5 Solve the following Assignment problem for maximization, if following matrix represents the sales
revenue generated by four salesmen in four different territories, determine the maximum revenue by
optimal assignment.
Salesmen/Territory P Q R S
A 40 36 28 36
B 45 32 32 29
C 38 45 41 38
D 30 46 43 44
Answer: Rs. 169

Q-6. The finance faculty in a management school decides to hold special seminars on four contemporary topics
–once per week in the afternoons. However, scheduling these seminars has to be done carefully so that
the number of students unable to attend is kept to a minimum. A careful study indicates that the number
of students who cannot attend a particular seminar on a specific day is as follows:

Leasing Portfolio Management Private Mutual funds Swaps and Options

Monday 50 40 60 20
Tuesday 40 30 40 30
Wednesday 60 20 30 20
Thursday 30 30 20 30
Friday 10 20 10 30

Find an optimal schedule of the seminars. Also find out the total number of students who will be missing
at least one seminar.
Answer: 70 students

Q-7 A company wants to assign 5 jobs P, Q, R, S, T to 4 workers A, B, C & D. Estimates of time (in hrs) of
completion of each job by each worker is given in the following table. How the jobs should be allocated
so as to minimize the total completion time of all the jobs.

From/To P Q R S T
A 10 12 18 14 8
B 8 11 17 14 13
C 11 14 15 18 15
D 13 12 16 13 17

Answer: 43 hrs (multiple solution)

Q-8 A company plans to assign 5 salesmen to 5 districts. Estimates of Sales revenue in thousands of Rupees
for each salesman in different districts are given in the following table. What should be the placement of
salesmen so as to maximize the expected sales revenue?

Salesman/District D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
S1 40 46 48 36 48
S2 48 32 36 29 44
S3 49 35 41 38 45
S4 30 46 49 44 44
S5 37 41 48 43 47

Answer: Rs. 231000 (multiple solution)

Q-9 A company wishes to assign 5 salesmen to 4 regions. Estimates of Sales revenue in thousands of Rupees
for each salesman in different districts are given in the following table. What should be the placement of
salesmen so as to maximize the expected sales revenue?

Salesman/District R1 R2 R3 R4
S1 36 54 23 36
S2 19 32 36 29
S3 38 35 41 38
S4 22 28 32 16
S5 24 42 27 35
Answer: Rs. 163000

Q-10 Following matrix represents the time taken by 3 workers to perform each of the 4 jobs. Solve the
following Assignment problem so that all the jobs are completed in minimum time.

Job 1 Job 2 Job 3 Job 4

Worker 1 20 30 40 70

Worker 2 40 20 60 30
Worker 3 30 80 50 50

Q-11 In a multi-storeyed building, there are 5 rooms to be assigned to 5 managers. Each room has its own
advantages and disadvantages. They are all of different shapes and sizes. Each of the 5 managers was
asked to rank their preferences amongst the rooms. Their preferences are recorded in the below table:

Manager
M1 M2 M3 M4 M5
302 302 303 302 301
303 304 301 305 302
304 305 304 304 304
301 305 303
302

Most of the managers did not list all the 5 rooms since they were not satisfied with some of these rooms.
Assuming that their preferences can be quantified in numbers, find out as to which manager should be
assigned to which room so that their total preference ranking is minimum.
Answer: M1-302,
M2-304,
M3-303,
M4-305,
M5-301

Q-12 Assign Jobs to workers to minimize the cost.

Workers Job I II III IV V

A 10 5 13 15 9
B 13 9 18 13 10
C 10 7 12 21 12
D 7 11 9 7 4
E 8 9 6 12 15

Answer: Rs. 38 (multiple solution)

Q-13 A firm produces 4 products. There are 4 operators capable of producing any of these 4 products. The
firm records 8 hrs a day and allows 30 min for lunch. The processing time in minutes and profit for each
of the products is given below. Find the optimal assignment of products to operators.

Operator A B C D
1 15 9 10 6
2 10 6 9 6
3 25 15 15 9
4 15 9 10 10
Profit/Unit 8 6 5 4

Answer: Maximum profit Rs. 1140

Q-14 An airline, operating 7 days a week, has given the following schedule of its flights between New Delhi
and Mumbai. The crews should have a minimum of 5 hours between the flights. Obtain the pairing of
flights that minimizes layover time away from home. For any given pairing, the crew will be based at the
city that results in the smallest layover.

New Delhi-Mumbai Mumbai-New Delhi

Flight No. Departure Arrival Flight No. Departure Arrival
101 5 A.M. 7 A.M. 201 7 A.M. 9 A.M.
102 7 A.M. 9 A.M. 202 8 A.M. 10 A.M.
103 1 P.M. 3 P.M. 203 1 P.M. 3 P.M.
104 7 P.M. 9 P.M. 204 6 P.M. 8 P.M.

Q-15 A company has 4 sales representatives who are to be assigned 4 sales territories. The monthly sales
increase estimated for each sales representatives are shown below.

Sales Sales Territories

Representatives I II III IV
A 200 150 170 220
B 160 120 150 140
C 190 195 190 200
D 180 175 160 190

If for certain reasons, sales representative B cannot be assigned to sales territory III, Suggest optimal
assignment so as to maximize total sales per month.

Answer: Rs. 745 (multiple solution)