Trial exam Logistics & Supply Chain Management

Surname: Given name: Matriculation number:

Degree program: Semester: Signature:

Examination details:
• Before starting with the exam, fill out the upper part of the cover sheet.
• Check whether the exam is complete: Cover sheet (1 page), Exercises (9
pages, 5 Exercises)
• Write your matriculation number on every page.
• Write with a non-erasable pen. Do not use a red color pen or a pencil.
• Write your answers in the designated areas under the exercises or, if
necessary, on the back of the page.
• Round numbers to the second decimal (e.g. 0.455 to 0.46 or 0.454 to 0.45)
• Do not rip apart the tacked exam!
• Strive for comprehensible and easily readable answers.
• Allowed auxiliaries: Non-programmable calculator
• Available time: 60 minutes

MC Total points open Individual points open

exercises exercises
Exercise 1 2-5 2 3 4 5

Points 12 48 12 12 12 12
achievable
Points achieved
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Exercise 1: (12 Points) Multiple Choice (MC) answer sheet

The multiple choice questions are on the following three pages (until page 3). Every
question answered correctly yields one point. Only one of the answers is correct and
there are no negative points for wrongly answered questions. Mark the correct (and
only one!) answer for each MC-question 1.1 to 1.12 in the corresponding box with a
cross. Example: 
Answer a) Answer b) Answer c) Answer d)
MC 1.1    
MC 1.2    
MC 1.3    
MC 1.4    
MC 1.5    
MC 1.6    
MC 1.7    
MC 1.8    
MC 1.9    
MC 1.10    
MC 1.11    
MC 1.12    

1.1 What is the goal of the knapsack problem?

a) Minimizing the number of bins when packing all products
b) Maximizing the value of products assigned to a bin
c) Maximizing the number of products assigned to a bin
d) Maximizing the capacity utilization of a bin

1.2 Which of the following parts do NOT play a role in the inventory position?
a) Physical inventory
b) Outstanding orders
c) Order quantity
d) Backlog

1.3 A restaurant buys fresh fish for the day. A fish costs 6 Euro and is sold in the
restaurant as a meal for 10 Euro. Unsold fish have to be thrown away at the
end of the day. Which cumulated probability of the demand distribution should
be covered when applying the newsvendor problem?
a) 0.6
b) 0.4
c) 0.5
d) 0.7

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1.4 For a vehicle routing problem, the following distance and savings matrices are
given:
Distance matrix Savings matrix
0 1 2 3 4
0 0 7 8 5 8
1 0 10 8 9 2 3 4
2 0 6 9 1 5 4 6
3 0 7 2 7 7
4 0 3 6

What is the first feasible tour (part) when applying the savings approach for a
tour the distance of which may not exceed 20?
a) 0–1–4–0
b) 0–3–4–0
c) 0–2–3–0
d) 0–2–4–0

1.5 The ABC and XYZ analyses classify products according to

a) The extent of inventory holding and backorder costs.
b) The length of the product cycle and the amount of yearly demand.
c) The importance of the product and the storage capacity needed.
d) The extent of the product’s value share and the predictability of the material
demand.

1.6 A company has a multi-product production and distributes via multiple stages
with a consolidation of packages. Planning problems of the company lie in the
number of distribution stages, the distribution strategy, as well as the sizing
and allocation of safety stocks. This supply chain structure is best applicable
to which of the following product groups?

a) Chemical industry / Pharmaceuticals

b) Copy machines
c) Printer manufacturer
d) Food industry

1.7 A product has an initial inventory of 50 units and no backlog in the morning.
Afterwards, additional 40 units are ordered (lead time 2 days). An average
demand of 30 units is expected per day. For the next day, there is a delivery
of 20 units pending. Which inventory control rule is used?

a) (s, S) – rule with s = 60 and S = 110

b) (s, S) – rule with s = 60 und S = 90
c) (s, S) – rule with s = 80 und S = 110
d) (s, S) – rule with s = 80 und S = 90

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1.8 The heuristics of sweep and 2-opt can be categorized as follows:

a) Sweep = construction procedure, 2-opt = improvement procedure

b) Sweep = improvement procedure, 2-opt = construction procedure
c) Sweep = improvement procedure, 2-opt = improvement procedure
d) Sweep = construction procedure, 2-opt = construction procedure

1.9 What is the goal of the SCOR model?

a) Using a holistic cost accounting approach for logistics.
b) Constructing best practice reference models.
c) Stochastic inventory control based on fixed rules.
d) Supplier selection based on criteria and weights.

1.10 Six products (A-F) are to be packed into cartons with a maximum volume of
11. After using the heuristic first-fit (without sorting), the following allocation
has been made (in brackets the volume of each product):
Carton 1: C (2), E(6), D(3)
Carton 2: A(4), F(5)
Carton 3: B(5)

In which sequence did the products initially arrive at the packing station?
a) C – A – F – E – D – B
b) C – E – A – F – D – B
c) C – A – E – F – D – B
d) C – E – A – B – D – F

1.11 The demand for apples in a supermarket has been 8, 3, 2 from Monday to
Wednesday and 10, 8, 2 from Thursday to Saturday. Of these demands a
maximum of 6 were fulfilled on each day until Wednesday and in the second
half of the week a maximum of 8 were fulfilled on each day.
The achieved beta service level is (rounded to integer percentage points):

a) 76 %
b) 82 %
c) 88 %
d) 92 %

1.12 Using the (s, Q) inventory control rule with a fixed Q, a higher value for s
tends to result in…

a) … a higher service level.

b) … a lower service level.
c) … a higher quantity per order.
d) … a lower quantity per order.

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Exercise 2: (12 Points)

Given is the following symmetric distance matrix for planning a round tour with 4
customers and the depot 0. All customers are to be served within one tour (travelling
salesman problem) and the start and end points of the tour are the depot. A starting
solution would be to drive to the customers in the sequence of their indices (0-1-2-3-4-
0).

0 1 2 3 4
0 0 5 7 5 4
1 5 0 10 4 1
2 7 10 0 9 6
3 5 4 9 0 2
4 4 1 6 2 0

a) How high is the distance when using the starting solution? (2 Points)

b) What does the tour look like when the 2-Opt approach is applied on the edges 1- 2
and 3-4 of the starting solution? What is the distance now? (3 Points)

Tour Distance

c) Create a savings matrix. Enter the values in the white cells of the following table.
(3 Points)
2 3 4
1
2
3

d) Create a tour via the savings procedure. Specify stepwise, which nodes/edges you
enter into the tour in what way and calculate the distance of the final tour.
Note: In the solution it is still required to have one final tour with all customers and
start/end at the depot. (4 Points)

Steps of tour construction

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Total distance of the final tour

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Exercise 3: (12 Points)

A product is controlled via a (R, S)-rule, with R = 2 and S = 40. The product has a lead
time of L = 1. Demands can be approximated based on a Poisson distribution with
mean 15.

Table of the (μ=15) Poisson distributed probability f(x) und cumulative distribution
function F(x):
x 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
f(x) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.002 0.005 0.010 0.019 0.032
F(x) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.003 0.008 0.018 0.037 0.070

x 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
f(x) 0.049 0.066 0.083 0.096 0.102 0.102 0.096 0.085 0.071 0.056
F(x) 0.118 0.185 0.268 0.363 0.466 0.568 0.664 0.749 0.819 0.875

x 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
f(x) 0.042 0.030 0.020 0.013 0.008 0.005 0.003 0.002 0.001 0.000
F(x) 0.917 0.947 0.967 0.981 0.989 0.994 0.997 0.998 0.999 1.000

a) Do a simulation of the replenishment plan over 6 periods in the table below. Use
the given [0,1] uniform distributed random numbers to draw the Poisson
distributed demand from the table above and assume a first order period in
period 1.
(10 Points)

Initial Inventor Order Inventor Rando Final Average

Perio Deman
inventor y quantit y after m inventor inventor
d d
y position y delivery number y y
1 25 0.913
2 0.465
3 0.953
4 0.737
5 0.066
6 0.154

b) Determine the alpha and beta service level of the whole time horizon (2 Points)

Alpha service level

Beta service level

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Exercise 4: (12 Points)

The following figures display the setup and solution of an optimization model.

a) Formulate the equivalent general mathematical optimization problem and use

the notation as given in the figure. (6 Points)

Objective function:

Constraints:

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b) Formulate the objective function using the given numbers and determine the
optimal solution. (2 Points)

Formulate the equivalent general mathematical optimization problem and use the
notation as given in the lecture.
(6 Points)
c) What is the name of this classic optimization problem, what is the meaning of
the parameters and decision variables used and how can the solution of the
decision variables be interpreted? (4 Points)

Optimization problem

Meaning of parameters and variables used

Interpretation solutions of variables 𝑥𝑖𝑗

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Exercise 5: (12 Points)

A product with the packaging dimensions c = 31 cm and d = 17 cm is to be placed on
a euro pallet with dimensions A = 80 cm and B = 120 cm via the block heuristic in a
most efficient manner.

a) Assume first that only one block is used. What is the maximum number of
packages that can be placed in the two possible variants? (2 Points)

Variant 1 Variant 2

b) Now, a higher utilization is to be achieved by using three blocks on the pallet.

The orientation of the packages and the setup of the blocks to be used are
depicted in the following figure.

d d

c c

A
d

Determine the four best layer plans and write down the number of packages
for each side of each block (A1-A3, B1-B3) as well as the total number of
packages for each plan. (10 Points)

Total
Layer number
A1 A2 A3 B1 B2 B3 of
plan
packages
1
2
3
4

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