DECSC 22 Introduc/on to Decision Making and Management Science

Module 2 Problem Set

1. The Fast Food Fantasy (Triple-F) hamburger chain is aEemp/ng to respond to customer demand for more
healthy food by introducing a new birdburger made from a combina/on of beef and chicken. The new
burger should weigh at least 125 grams and have at most 350 calories, 15 grams of fat, and 360 milligrams
of sodium. Each gram of beef used has 2.5 calories, 0.2 gram of fat, and 3.5 milligrams of sodium.
Corresponding values for chicken are 1.8 calories, 0.1 gram, and 2.5 milligrams. Triple-F wants to find the
mix that will meet all requirements and maximize beef content. Formulate as a linear programming
model.

2. Sun Agriculture (SunAg) operates a farm of 10,000 acres in the dry southwestern part of the United States.
In the next season, SunAg can plant acres in either vegetables, which return a profit of $450 per acre, or
coEon, which returns $200 per acre. As a precau/on against bad weather, insects and other factors,
SunAg will plant no more than 70% of its total holdings in any one of these op/ons. Also, irriga/on water
is limited. To grow vegetables requires 10 units of water per acre, and coEon requires 7, out of a
government alloca/on of 70,000 units per season. SunAg wishes to develop a plan/ng plan that
maximizes profit. Formulate as a linear programming model.

3. It's /me to mow the lawns of your estate again. Your mansion has a front lawn and 1.2 acres and a back
lawn of 2.4 acres. For this task, you have available 2.5 gallons of gasoline, one fully charged baEery and
three different mowers. You are told that you should choose the equipment that would maximize your
calorie loss to keep your figure trim.
Calorie loss from Lawn
Equipment Fuel Usage exercise, cal/acre Location
1
Electric riding mower acre/charge 1 Front
1
acre/charge 1 Back
Self-propelled reel
mower 0.5 gal/acre 1.5 Front
1.5 gal/acre 2 Back
Hand-pushedrotary
mower 0.8 gal/acre 2 Front
0.9 gal/acre 8 Back

4. Web Mercan/le sells many household products through an on-line catalog. The company needs
substan/al warehouse space for storing its goods. Plans now are being made for leasing ware- house
storage space over the next 5 months. Just how much space will be required in each of these months is
known. However, since these space requirements are quite different, it may be most economical to lease
only the amount needed each month on a month- by-month basis. On the other hand, the addi/onal cost
for leasing space for addi/onal months is much less than for the first month, so it may be less expensive to
lease the maximum amount needed for the en/re 5 months. Another op/on is the intermediate approach
of changing the total amount of space leased (by adding a new lease and/or having an old lease expire) at
least once but not every month.

The space requirement and the leasing costs for the various leasing periods are as follows:

Month Required Space (Sq. c.) Leasing Period (Months) Cost per Sq. Ft. Leased
1 30,000 1 $65
2 20,000 2 $100
3 40,000 3 $135
4 10,000 4 $160
5 50,000 5 $190
 The objec/ve is to minimize the total leasing cost for mee/ng the space requirements. Formulate as a
linear programming model.

5. A contractor is working on a project, work on which is expected to last for a period of 52 weeks. It is
es/mated that during the jth week, the contractor will need uj man-hours of labor, j = 1 to 52, for this
project. The contractor can fulfill these requirements either by hiring laborers over the en/re 52 week
period (called steady labor) or by hiring laborers on weekly basis each week (called casual labor), or by
employing a combina/on of both. One man-hour of steady labor costs s pesos; the cost is the same each
week. However, the cost of casual labor may vary from week to week, and it is expected to be cj pesos per
man-hour, during week j, for j = 1 to 52. How can he fulfill the labor requirements at minimal cost?
Formulate as a linear programming model.

6. Under normal working condi/ons a factory produces up to 100 units of a certain product in each of four
consecu/ve /me periods at costs which vary from period to period as shown in the table below.

Addi/onal units can be produced by over/me working. The maximum quan/ty and costs are shown in the
table below, together with the forecast demands for the product in each of the four /me periods.

Time Period Demand (Units) Normal Produc/on Over/me Over/me

Costs ($/unit) Produc/on Produc/on Costs
Capacity (units) ($/unit)
1 130 6 60 8
2 80 4 65 6
3 125 8 70 10
4 195 9 60 11

It is possible to hold up to 70 units of product in store from one period to the next at a cost of $1.5K per
unit per period. (This figure of $1.5K per unit per period is known as a stock-holding cost and represents
the fact that we are incurring costs associated with the storage of stock).

It is required to determine the produc/on and storage schedule which will meet the stated demands over
the four /me periods at minimum cost given that at the start of period 1 we have 15 units in stock.
Formulate this problem as a linear programming model.

7. Your mother has asked you to help her in the payments of her credit card bills. She owes the amount on
her credit cards shown in the table below. Your mom is willing to allocate up to $7,000 per month to pay
off these credit cards. All cards must be paid off within 10 months. To solve this problem, you must
understand how interest on a loan works. To illustrate, suppose your mom pays $5,000 on Ci/bank during
month 1. Then her Ci/bank balance at the beginning of month 2 is:

10,000 – (5,000 – 0.005(10,000))

This follows because during month 1, your mom incurs 0.005(10,000) in interest charges on her Ci/bank
card.

Your mom has also expressed that as much as possible, she wants to pay the balances to the four credit
cards equally, such that balances between to credit cards per month should be have a maximum difference
of $2,500 only. Given the forecasted monthly interest rate for the different credit cards, formulate a linear
programming model that will minimize the total amount of money that you mom will shell out to pay for
her credit card bills at the end of 10 months.

Card Balance
Ci/bank $10,000
Metrobank $10,000
BPI $10,000
Equitable $10,000
 Monthly Interest Rate (of Month)
Card 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ci/bank 0.50% 0.75% 0.25% 0.40% 0.50% 0.50% 1.00% 0.80% 0.75% 0.40%
Metrobank 0.60% 0.60% 0.50% 0.30% 0.45% 0.40% 0.70% 0.90% 0.75% 0.50%
BPI 0.75% 0.50% 0.40% 0.50% 0.50% 0.35% 0.65% 0.75% 0.65% 0.55%
Equitable 0.65% 0.60% 0.30% 0.30% 0.70% 0.65% 0.65% 0.70% 0.50% 0.45%

8. Graph and solve the linear program

𝑀𝑎𝑥 𝑍 = 3𝑥! + 2𝑥"

𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑡𝑜:
𝑥! + 2𝑥" ≥ 1
6𝑥! + 4𝑥" ≤ 15
6𝑥! − 4𝑥" ≤ 9
−4𝑥! + 4𝑥" ≤ 13
𝑥! , 𝑥" ≥ 0

a. Graph the linear programming model.

b. What is the op/mal solu/on and value?
c. Given the op/mal solu/on, if the objec/ve func/on was changed to Z = 3X1 + BX2, for what value/s of
B will the op/mal value not change?