MDPN362 – Operations Research I – Fall 2022

Tutorial 4
Problems to be solved by the TA in class: 1
Problems to be solved by students with TA guidance and submitted in class: 2, 3
Problems to be solved by students and submitted online as homework in a week: ---

1) An assembly line, consisting of three consecutive workstations, produces two cellular phone
models: DiGi-1 and DiGi-2. The following table provides the assembly times for the three
workstations.

Minutes per unit

Workstation DiGi-1 DiGi-2
1 6 4
2 5 4
3 4 6

The daily maintenance for workstations 1, 2, and 3 consumes l0%, 14%, and 12%, respectively, of
the maximum 480 minutes available for each workstation every day. The company wishes to
determine the optimal product mix that will minimize the total idle (unused) times in the three
workstations. Formulate the problem as a linear program and find the optimum solution using the
Simplex method.

2) The Gutchi Company manufactures purses, shaving bags, and backpacks. The construction of the
three products requires leather and synthetics, with leather being the limiting raw material. The
production process uses two types of skilled labor: sewing and finishing. The following table
gives the availability of the resources, their usage by the three products, and the prices per unit.

Resource requirements per unit

Resource Purse Rag Backpack Daily availability
Leather (ft2) 2 1 3 42
Sewing (hr) 2 1 2 40
Finishing (hr) 1 0.5 1 45
Price ($) 24 22 45

Formulate the problem as a linear program and find the optimum solution using the Simplex method.
3) Gepbab Production Company uses labor and raw material to produce three products. The resource
requirements and sales price for the three products are shown in the following table:

Product
Resource 1 2 3
Labor (hours) 3 4 6
Raw material (units) 2 2 5
Selling price ($) 6 8 13

Currently, 60 units of raw material are available. Up to 90 hours of labor can be purchased at $1
per hour. With the objective of maximizing Gepbab’s profit, the following decision variables are
defined:

xi = quantity to be produced for product i where i = 1, 2, 3

y = number of labor hours to be purchased

Along with the non-negativity constraints, the following set of constraints define the feasible region:

(1) Raw material availability:

2 x1 + 2 x2 + 5 x3  60
(2) Labor availability:
3 x1 + 4 x2 + 6 x3  y
(3) Limit on the number of labor hours that can be purchased:
y  90

Complete the following Simplex tableaux by filling in the numbers in the dotted spaces:

Iter. Basic Eq. Coefficient of RHS Ratio

Variable z x1 x2 x3 y x4 x5 x6
Z (0) 1 -6 …. …. 1 0 0 0 …. ….
x4 (1) 0 2 …. …. 0 1 0 0 …. ….
0
x5 (2) 0 3 …. …. -1 0 1 0 …. ….
x6 (3) 0 0 …. …. 1 0 0 1 …. ….
Z (0) 1 1/2 2/3 0 …. 0 13/6 0 0
x4 (1) 0 -1/2 -4/3 0 …. 1 -5/6 0 …. ….
1
x3 (2) 0 1/2 2/3 1 …. 0 1/6 0 …. ….
x6 (3) 0 0 0 0 …. 0 0 1 …. ….
Z (0) 1 -1/5 -6/5 0 0 7/5 1 0 84
y (1) 0 -3/5 -8/5 0 1 6/5 -1 0 72
2
x3 (2) 0 2/5 2/5 1 0 1/5 0 0 12 30
x6 (3) 0 …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. ….
Z (0) 1 1/4 0 0 0 1/2 7/4 3/4 ….
y (1) 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 90
3
x3 (2) 0 1/4 0 1 0 1/2 -1/4 -1/4 7.5
x2 (3) 0 3/8 1 0 0 -3/4 5/8 5/8 45/4