ZAMBIAN OPEN UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS STUDIES

2022-SEMESTER ONE (1) ASSIGNMENTS

BBA 313 – OPERATIONS RESEARCH

LECTURER: MR. L. SIMATAA MOBILE NO. 0977-564568
EMAIL: Lubasi.simataa@zaou.ac.zm

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Answer all the questions
2. Full credit will only be given if all the working is shown. Answers alone whether
correct or wrong without any working shown will earn a zero mark.

NOTE: LATE SUBMISSION WILL NOT BE ENTERTAINED

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ASSIGNMENT ONE DUE DATE: 25TH MARCH, 2022

QUESTION ONE

(a) The ABC Electrical Appliance Company produces two products: refrigerators and ranges.
Production takes place in two separate departments. Refrigerators are produced in
department I and ranges are produced in department II. The weekly production cannot
exceed 25 refrigerators in department I and 35 ranges in department II, because of limited
available facilities in the two department. The company regularly employs a total of 60
workers in the two departments. A refrigerator requires 2 man-weeks of labour while a
range requires 1-week of labour. A refrigerator contributes a profit of K600 and a range

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 contributes a profit of K400. Formulate the problem as an L.P. problem to determine the
number of units of refrigerator and ranges that the company should produce to realize
maximum profit.
(b) A company has three operational department (weaving, processing and packing) with
capacity to produce three different types of cloths namely, suitings, shirting and woolens
yielding the profit of K2, K4 and K3 per metre respectively. One metre suiting requires 3
minutes in weaving, 2 minutes in processing and 1 minute in packing. One metre of shirting
requires 4 minutes in weaving, 1 minute in processing and 3 minutes in packing while one
metre woolen requires 3 minutes in each department. In a week, total run time of each
department is 60, 40 and 80 hours of weaving, processing and packing departments
respectively. Formulate the L.P. problem to find the product mix to maximize the profit.
(c) A manufacture produces three products A, B and C. Each product requires processing on
two machines M 1 and M 2 . The required to produce one unit of each product on a machine
is given in the table below:
Product Time to produce one unit (hour)
Machine M 1 Machine M 2

A 0.5 0.6
B 0.7 0.8
C 0.9 1.05
There are 85 hours available on each machine; the operating cost is K5 per hour for
machine M 1 and K4 per hour for machine M 2 . The product requirements are at least 90 units

of A, at least 80 units of B and at least 60 units of C. The manufacturer wishes to meet the
requirements at minimum cost. Formulate the problem as L.P problem and solve it using
simplex method.

QUESTION TWO
(a) A contractor has been assigned the excavation work of a canal and of the headworks on a
project. In order to ensure a balanced progress on the entire work the management has
imposed certain conditions on his working. The excavation of the canal is more profitable
than that of the headworks, but he has to abide by the conditions of contract. In addition,

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 he has own limitations on manpower and equipment. It is desired to find the optimum
amount of excavation on the two works which he should undertake so that his profits are
maximized and he satisfies the constraints of the contract and of the resources. These
constraints are given below:
i. The difference in the quantity of earthwork done on the two works does not
exceed 2 units in a day.
ii. The difference between the quantity of canal excavation and of twice the
headworks excavation does not exceed 1 unit in a day.
iii. Each unit of canal excavation done in a day requires one unit of manpower and
one unit of machines; and each unit of headworks excavation requires 2 units of
manpower and one unit of machines. Maximum available manpower is 10 units
and machines 6 units.
The contractor stipulates a profit of 2 units for each unit of canal excavation and half
of this for each unit of headworks excavation.
Formulate a linear programming model for this problem and solve it to find the optimum amount
of excavation on the two works which he should undertake so that his profits are maximized. Use
simplex method.
(b) Maximize Z = −150 x1 − 100 x2 + 280, 000

Subject to 20 ≤ x1 ≤ 60,
70 ≤ x2 ≤ 140,
120 ≤ x1 + x2 ≤ 140,
x1 , x2 ≥ 0.

(c) Minimize Z = 20 x1 + 10 x2

subject to x1 + 2 x2 ≤ 40,
3 x1 + x2 ≥ 30,
4 x1 + 3 x2 ≥ 60,

x1 , x2 ≥ 0

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QUESTION THREE
(a) Two products A and B are to be manufactured. One unit of product A requires 2.4 minutes
of punch press time and 5 minutes of assembly time. The profit for product A is K0.60 per
unit. One unit of product B requires 3 minutes of punch press time and 2.5 minutes of
welding time. The profit for product B is K0.70 per unit. The capacity of the punch press
department available for these products is 1,200 minutes/week. The welding department
has an idle capacity of 600 minutes per week an assembly department has 1,500 minutes
per week.
i. Formulate the problem as linear programming problem.
ii. Determine the quantities of products A and B so that total profit is maximized by
simplex method.
(b) A feed mixing operation can be described in terms of two activities. The required mixture
must contain four kinds of ingredients w, x, y and z. Two basic feeds A and B, which
contain the required ingredients are available in the market. 1KG of A contains 0.1KG of
w, 0.1KG of y and 0.2KG of z. Likewise, 1KG of feed B contains 0.1KG of x, 0.2KG of y
and 0.1KG of z. The daily per head requirement is of at least, 0.4KG of w, 0.6KG of x,
2KG of y and 1.6KG of z. Feed A can be bought for K0.07 per KG and B for K0.05 per
KG. Determine the quantity of feed A and B in the mixture in order that the total cost is
minimum by simplex method.
(c) A firm manufactures two items. It purchases castings which are then machined, bored and
polished. Castings for items A and B cost K3 and K4 respectively and are sold at K6 and
K7 each respectively. Running costs of the three machines are K20, K14 and K17.50 per
hour respectively. Capacities of machines are

Part A Part B
Machining capacity 25/hour 40/hour
Boring capacity 28/hour 35/hour
Polishing capacity 35/hour 25/hour
What product mix maximize the profit? Use simplex method.

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QUESTION FOUR
(a) Give an outline of the simplex method for solving an L.L.P. and solve:
Maximize Z = 4 x1 + 5 x2 + 9 x3 + 11x4 ,
subject to constraints x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 ≤ 15,
7x1 + 5 x2 + 3 x3 + 2 x4 ≤ 120,
3x1 + 5 x2 + 10 x3 + 15 x4 ≤ 100
x j ≥ 0 ( j = 1, 2,3, 4.)

(b) Use the Big M-method to

min imize Z = 60 x1 + 80 x2
subject to x1 ≤ 400,
x2 ≥ 200,
x1 + x2 = 500,
x1 , x2 ≥ 0.
(c) Solve the following problem:
Maximize Z = x1 + 2 x2 + 3 x3
subject to x1 − x2 + x3 ≥ 4,
x1 + x2 + 2 x3 + ≤ 8,
x1 − x3 ≥ 2,
x1 , x2 , x3 ≥ 0.

QUESTION FIVE
(a) A firm manufacturing a single product has three plants at locations X, Y and Z. The three
plants have produced 60, 35 and 40 units respectively during the week. The firm has made
commitments to sell 22, 45, 20, 18 and 30 units of the product to customers A, B, C, D and
E respectively. The net per unit cost of transporting from the three plants to the five
customers is given in the table below.
Customers
Plant Locations A B C D E
X 4 1 3 4 4
Y 2 3 2 2 3
Z 3 5 2 4 4

i. Use Vogel’s approximation method to determine the cost of shifting the product
from plant locations to the customers.
ii. Does your solution provide a least cost transportation schedule?

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 (b) Pearl Corporation has four plants each of which can manufacture any one of four products.
Production costs differ from one plant to another as do sales revenue. Given the revenue
and cost data below, obtain which product each plant should produce to minimize the
profit.
Plants Sales Revenue Product Production Cost Product
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
A 50 68 49 62 49 60 45 61
B 60 70 51 74 55 63 45 69
C 55 67 53 70 52 62 49 58
D 58 65 54 69 55 64 48 66

QUESTION SIX
(a) A typist at an office of a company receives on the average 20 letters per day for typing.
The typist works 8 hours a day and it takes on the average 20 minutes to type a letter. The
cost of a letter waiting to be mailed (opportunity cost) is 80 ngwee per hour and the cost of
the equipment plus salary of the typist is K45 per day.
(i) What is the typist’s utilization rate?
(ii) What is the average number of letters waiting to be typed?
(iii) What is the average waiting time needed to have a letter typed?
(iv) What is the total daily cost of waiting letters to be mailed?

(b) An insurance company has 3 claim adjusters in its main office. Customers are found to
arrive in Poisson manner at the rate of 5 per hour for settling claims against the company.
The service time is found to have exponential distribution with mean 25 minutes. Claimants
are processed on first come, first served basis. Calculate
(i) The average number of customers in the system
(ii) The average time a customer spends in the system
(iii) The average queue length
(iv) The average waiting time for customers
(v) The number of hours per week spent on performing the job
(vi) The probability that at least a claim adjuster is waiting for the customer

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