ASSIGNMENT TWO AUGUST 2024

QUESTION ONE
QUICKMART SUPERMARKET
Quickmart is a 24-hour supermarket. It has the following minimum requirement for
security officers:
TABLE 1: STAFFING REQUIREMENTS
TIME OF DAY MINIMUM NUMBER OF
CASHIERS REQUIRED
Midnight – 4am 7
4am - 8am 20
8am - Noon 14
Noon – 4pm 20
4pm – 8pm 10
8pm – Midnight 5

TABLE 2: SHIFT SCHEDULE

SHIFT STARTING TIME ENDING TIME
1 Midnight 8.00am
2 4.00am Noon
3 8.00am 4.00pm
4 Noon 8.00pm
5 4.00pm Midnight
6 8.00pm 4.00am

Shift 1 follows immediately after shift 6. An officer works eight consecutive hours,
starting at the beginning of one of the six periods. The Human Resources Manager
wants to determine how many officers should work each shift in order to minimize
total number of officers employed while satisfying requirements.
REQUIRED
Formulate this as a linear programming mathematical model.

QUESTION TWO
FLOUR MILLS
A company owns two flour mills, A and B, which have different production capacities
for High, Medium and Low grade flour.
This company has entered into a contract to supply flour to a firm every week with 12,
8 and 24 quintals of High, Medium and Low grade respectively. It costs the company
sh 1,000 and sh 800 per day to run mill A and B respectively. On a day, mill A
produces 6, 2 and 4 quintals of High, Medium and Low grade flour respectively, mill
B produces 2, 2 and 12 quintals of High, Medium and Low grade flour respectively.

REQUIRED
(a) Formulate this as a linear programming mathematical model.
(b) Using the Graphical Method determine how many weeks per week should each
mill be operated in order to meet the contract order most economically.

QUESTION THREE
MIGORI COOPERATIVE FEDERATION
Migori Cooperative Federation is a group of three farming communities in Migori
County. The overall planning for this grou is done in its Cordinating Technical Office
in Nyatike. This office is currently planning agricultural production for the coming
year.

The agricultural output of each farming community is limited by both the amount
available irrigable land and the quantity of water allocated for irrigation by the Water
Commissioner (a national government official). The data are given in the Table
below:
TABLE 1: RESOURCE DATA FOR MIGORI COOPERATIVE FEDERATION
USABLE LAND WATER ALLOCATION
COMMUNITY (ACRES) (Acre/Feet)
1 400 600
2 600 800
3 300 375

The crops suited for this region include sugar, cotton and sorghum, and these are the
three being considered for the upcoming season. The crops differe in their expected
net return epr acre and thier consumption of water. In addition, the Ministry of
Agriculture has set a maximum quota for the total acreage that can be devoted to each
of these crops by the Migori Cooperative Federation as in Table 2 below:

TABLE 2: DATA FOR MIGORI COOPERATIVE FEDERATION

MAXIMUM WATER CONSUMPTION NET RETURN
CROP QUATA (ACRES) (Acre Feet/Acre) (Sh/Acre)
Sugar 600 3 1,000
Cotton 500 2 750
Sorghum 325 1 250

Because of the limited water available for irrigation, Migori Cooperative Federation
will not be able to use all its irrigable land for planting in the upcoming season. To
ensure equity between the three farming communities, it has been agreed that every
farming community will plant the same proportion of its available irrigable land. For
example, if farming community 1 plants 200 of its available 400 acres, then farming
community 2 must plant 300 of its 600 acres, while farming community 3 plants 150
acres of its 300 acres. However, any combination of the crops may be grown at any of
the farming community.
The job facing the Cordinating Technical office in Nyatike is to plan how many acres
to devote to each crop at the respective farming community while satisfying the
restrictions.
The objective is to maximize the total return to Migori Cooperative Federation as a
whole.

REQUIRED
Formulate this as a linear programming mathematical model.

QUESTION FOUR
RAINBOW GLASS COMPANY
Rainbow Glass Company produces high-quality products including windows and
glass doors. It has three plants: Aluminium frames and hardware are made in Kibera,
Plant 1, wood rames are made in Dagoreti, Plant 2, and Embakasi, plant 3, produces
glass frames and assembles the product.
Because of the declining earnings, top management has decided to revamp the
company’s product line. Unprofitable products are being discontinued, releasing
production capacity to launch two new products having large sales potential:
Product 1: An 8-foot glass door with aluminium framing.
Product 2: A 4x6 foot double-hung wood framed window.

Product 1 requires some of the production capacity in Plants 1 and 3, but none in Plant
2. Product 2 needs only Plants 2 and 3. The marketing division has concluded that
the company could sell as much of either product as could be produced by these
plants. However, because both products would be competing for the same production
capacity in Plant 3, it is not clear which mix of the two products would be most
profitable.

Quantitative Methods team has been formed to study this question.

The Quantitative Methods team began by having discussions with upper management
to identify management’s objectives for the study. These discussion led to developing
the following problem:
“Determine what the production rates should be for the two products in order
to maximize their total profit, subject to restrictions imposed by the limited
production capacities available in the three plants. (Each product will be
produced in batches of 20, so the production rate is identified as the number
of batches produced per week). Any combination of production rates that
satisfies these restrictiopns is permitted, including producing none of one
product as much as possible of the other.”

The Quantitative Method team has identified the data that needed to be gathered:
(1) Number of hours of production time available per week in each plant for these new
products. (Most of the time in these plants already is committed to current pructs,
so the available capacity for the new products is quite limited).

(2) Number of hours of production time used in each plant for each batch produced of
each new product.

(3) Profit per batch produced of each new product. (Profit per batch produced was
chosen as an appropriate measure after the team concluded that the incremental
profit from each additional batch produced would be roughly constant regardless
of the total number of batches produced. Because no substantial costs will be
incurred to initiate the production and marketing of these new products, the total
profit from each one is approximately this profit per batch produced times the
number of batches produced.

Obtaining reasonable estimates of thes quantities required enlisting the help of key
personnel in various units of the company. Staff in the manufacturing division
provided the data in the first category above. Developing the estimates for the second
category of datarequired some analysis by the manufacturing engineers involved in
designing the production processs for the new products. By analyzing cost data from
these same engineers and marketing division, along with a pricing decision from the
marketing dvision, the accounting department developed estimates for the third
category. The Table below summarizes the data gathered.

Quantitative Methods Team immediately recognized that this was a linear

programming problem for the classic product mix type, and undertook the
formulation of the corresponding mathematical model.

TABLE CONTAINING DATA FOR RAINBOW GLASS COMPANY

PRODUCTION TIME PER
BACTH HOURS PRODUCTION TIME
PRODUCT (HOURS) AVAILABLE PER
PLANT 1 2 WEEK
1 1 0 4
2 0 2 12
3 3 2 18
Profit/batch Sh 3,000 Sh 5,000

REQUIRED
(a) Formulate this as a linear programming mathematical model.
(b) Using the graphical method, provide the answer to the question.

QUESTION FIVE
UNION AIRWAYS
Union Airways is adding more flights to and from its hub at Wilson Airport, and so it
needs to hire additional customer service agents. However, it is not clear just how
many more should be hired. Management recognizes the need for cost control while
also consistently providing a satisfactory level of service to customers. Therefore,
Quantitive Methods team is studying how to schedule the agents to provide
satisfactory service with the smallest personnel cost.
Based on the new schedule of flights, an analysis has been made of the minimum
number of customer service agents that need to be on duty at different times of the day
to provide a satisfactory level of service. The rightmost column of the Table below
shows the number of agents needed for the time periods given in the first column.

TABLE: DATA FOR UNION AIRWAYS PERSONNEL SCHEDULING

TIME PERIODS COVERED MINIMUM
SHIFT NUMBER OF
AGENTS USED
TIME-PERIOD 1 2 3 4 5
6.00am – 8.00am √ 48
8.00am – 10.00am √ √ 79
10.00am – Noon √ √ 65
Noon – 2.00pm √ √ √ 87
2.00pm – 4.00pm √ √ 64
4.00pm – 6.00pm √ √ 73
6.00pm – 8.00pm √ √ 82
8.00pm – 10.00pm √ 43
10.00pm – midnight √ √ 52
Midnight – 6.00am √ 15
Daily cost per agent Sh 170 Sh 160 Sh 175 Sh 180 Sh 195

The other entries in this table reflect one of the provisions in the company’s current
contract with the union that represents customer service agents. The provision is that
each agent work an 8-hour shift 5 days a week, and the shifts are:
SHIFT TIME PERIOD
1 6.00am – 2.00pm
2 8.00am – 4.00pm
3 Noon – 8.00pm
4 4.00pm – Midnight
 5 10.00pm – 6.00am

Checkmarks in the Table show hours covered by the respective shifts. Becasue
some shifts are less desirable than others, the wages specified in the contract
differ by shift.

The problem is to determine who many agents should be assigned to the

respective shifts each day to minimize total personnel cost for agents, based
on the bottom row, while meeting (or surpassing) the service requirements
given in the rightmost column.

REQUIRED
Formulate as a linear programming mathematical model.