STOR 305 Assignment #8
Decision-making using spreadsheet models October 11, 2019
Prof. Mariana Olvera-Cravioto Page 1 of 3
Assignment #8 – due Friday, October 25th, 2019
1. A major hotel chain is constructing a new resort hotel complex in Greenbranch Springs, West
Virginia. The resort is in a heavily wooded area, and the developers want to preserve as
much of the natural beauty as possible. To do so, the developers want to connect all the
various facilities in the complex with a combination walkingriding path that will minimize
the amount of pathway that will have to be cut through the woods. The following network
shows possible connecting paths and corresponding distances (in yards) between the facilities:
Determine the path that will connect all the facilities with the minimum amount of construc-
tion and indicate the total length of the pathway.
2. State University has decided to reconstruct the sidewalks throughout the east side of its
campus to provide wheelchair access. However, upgrading sidewalks is a very expensive
undertaking, so for the first phase of this project, university administrators want to make sure
they connect all buildings with wheelchair access with the minimum number of refurbished
sidewalks possible. Following is a network of the existing sidewalks on the east side of campus,
with the feet between each building shown on the branches:
2 STOR 305, Assignment #8
Determine a minimal spanning tree network that will connect all the buildings on campus
with wheelchair access sidewalks and indicate the number of feet of sidewalk.
3. A manufacturing company produces products 1, 2, and 3. The three products have the
following resource requirements and produce the following profit:
Product Labor (hr./unit) Material (lb./unit) Profit ($/unit)
1 5 4 $3
2 2 6 5
3 4 3 2
At present, the firm has a daily labor capacity of 240 available hours and a daily supply of
400 pounds of material. The general linear programming formulation for this problem is as
follows:
maximize 3x1 + 5x2 + 2x3
subject to 5x1 + 2x2 + 4x3 ≤ 240
4x1 + 6x2 + 3x3 ≤ 400
x1 , x2 , x3 ≥ 0
Management has developed the following set of goals, arranged in order of their importance
to the firm:
(1) Because of recent labor relations difficulties, management wants to avoid underutilization
of normal production capacity.
(2) Management has established a satisfactory profit level of $500 per day.
(3) Overtime is to be minimized as much as possible.
(4) Management wants to minimize the purchase of additional materials to avoid handling
and storage problems.
Formulate a goal programming model to determine the number of each product to produce
to best satisfy the goals.
4. A rural clinic hires its staff from nearby cities and towns on a part-time basis. The clinic
attempts to have a general practitioner (GP), a nurse, and an internist on duty during at
least a portion of each week. The clinic has a weekly budget of $1,200. A GP charges the
clinic $40 per hour, a nurse charges $20 per hour, and an internist charges $150 per hour.
The clinic has established the following goals, in order of priority:
(1) A nurse should be available at least 30 hours per week.
(2) The weekly budget of $1,200 should not be exceeded.
(3) A GP or an internist should be available at least 20 hours per week.
(4) An internist should be available at least 6 hours per week.
(a) Formulate a goal programming model to determine the number of hours to hire each
staff member to satisfy the various goals.
STOR 305, Assignment #8 3
(b) Solve the model by using the computer.
5. Infocomp Systems Lab is a research and development (R&D) company that develops computer
systems and software primarily for the medical industry. The lab has proposals from its own
researchers for eight new projects. Each of the proposed research projects requires limited
resources, and it is not possible to undertake all of them. The following table shows the
developmental budget, the number of researchers, and the expected annual sales from each
project if successfully developed and implemented:
Developmental Number of Expected Annual
Project Budget ($1,000,000s) Research Personnel Sales ($1,000,000s)
1 $0.675 6 $0.82
2 1.050 5 1.75
3 0.725 7 1.60
4 0.430 8 1.90
5 1.240 10 0.93
6 0.890 6 1.70
7 1.620 7 1.30
8 1.200 6 1.80
The lab has developed the following set of prioritized goals for selecting which projects to
initiate:
(1) The company would like to remain within a total developmental budget of $5,000,000.
(2) The number of available research personnel is 27, and Infocomp would like to avoid
obtaining extra researchers.
(3) The company would like the expected future annual sales from the implemented projects
to be at least $6,500,000.
(4) Projects 1, 3, 4, and 6 are considered offensive in that they represent new product
initiatives, while projects 2, 5, 7, and 8 are existing product upgrades and thus defensive
in nature. The lab would like to select at least two projects from each group.
(5) Projects 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 are considered the most risky of the projects, and the company
would prefer not to select any more than three of these projects.
(6) The labs owner has indicated that she would like to see projects 5 and 6 initiated if
doing so would not interfere with the achievement of any of the more important goals
determined by the labs top management.
(a) Formulate a goal programming model to determine which projects Infocomp Systems
Lab should select to best achieve its goals.
(b) Solve this model by using the computer. (Note that the solution requires 01 integer
values for the variables in the model.)
