BA250 MANAGEMENT SCIENCE

EXAMPLE PROBLEMS
CHAPTER 3
#19,25,33
19)The Bradley family owns 410 acres of farmland in North
Carolina on which they grow corn and tobacco. Each acre
of corn costs $105 to plant, cultivate, and harvest; each
acre of tobacco costs $210. The Bradleys have a budget of
$52,500 for next year. The government limits the number
of acres of tobacco that can be planted to 100. The profit
from each acre of corn is $300; the profit from each acre of
tobacco is $520. Formulate a linear programming model for
this problem.
a) How many acres of farmland will not be cultivated at the
optimal solution? Do the Bradleys use the entire 100-acre
tobacco allotment?
b) What would the profit for corn have to be for the Bradleys
to plant only corn?
c) If the Bradleys can obtain an additional 100 acres of land,
will the number of acres of corn and tobacco they plan to
grow change?
d) If the Bradleys decide not to cultivate a 50-acre section as
part of a crop recovery program, how will it affect their
crop plans?
At point D only corn is planted. In order for
point D to be optimal the slope of the
objective function will have to be at least as
great (i.e., steep) as the slope of the
constraint line, x1 + x2 = 410, which is −1.
Thus, the profit for corn is computed as,
−c1/520 = −1
c1 = 520
The profit for corn must be greater than $520
for the Bradleys to plant only corn.
25)Rucklehouse Public Relations has been contracted to do a survey
following an election primary in New Hampshire. The firm must
assign interviewers to conduct the survey by telephone or in
person. One person can conduct 80 telephone interviews or 40
personal interviews in a single day. The following criteria have been
established by the firm to ensure a representative survey:
– At least 3,000 interviews must be conducted.
– At least 1,000 interviews must be by telephone.
– At least 800 interviews must be personal.
• An interviewer conducts only one type of interview each day. The
cost is $50 per day for a telephone interviewer and $70 per day for
a personal interviewer. Formulate a linear programming model for
this problem.
a) Determine the sensitivity ranges for the daily cost of a telephone
interviewer and the number of personal interviews required.
b) Does the firm conduct any more telephone and personal
interviews than are required, and if so, how many more?
c) What would be the effect on the optimal solution if the firm were
required by the client to increase the number of personal
interviews conducted from 800 to a total of 1,200?
33) A Dept. Store in US orders 500 pairs of jeans
each month from two suppliers ( China & Brazil)
China Brazil

Cost/pair of jean $11 $16

Defective Rate 0.07 0.02

Requirements:
• No more than 5% defective items
• Order at least 20% from each supplier
a) Formulate an LP model and solve using QM
b) How would you formulate this problem, if the
problem is restated as minimize the defective
items while budgeting $7000 for purchasing the
jeans?