ENGG1400

Name

Student ID:

Assignment #1

Please note:

Due: Wednesday, 3 September 2014 4pm (Late submission penalties apply.)

This is an individual assignment.

Please put a copy of your Assignment including all workings, in Professor Wallers assignment
drop box located in the Civil Engineering Building on level 1, opposite of room 114 (Tea Room).
His box is labelled with his name Waller.

(3 Problems, Total 100 points)

Be sure to show all work.

Problem 1: LP Example (30 pts)

Let and be two variables and consider the shaded solution space delimited by a set of linear
constraints:

Let

be the objective function of the optimization problem.

Part A) Assume that and are continuous variables (not restricted to integer values). Write out the
mathematical formulation of the model that represents the problem formed by the shaded solution
space and the objective function
.
Part B) Solve this problem using AMPL. What is the optimal solution and the value of the objective
function?
Part C) Now assume that and are integer variables. Solve this problem using AMPL. What is the
optimal solution and the value of the objective function? How does the solution change from your
answer in part B and why?

Problem 2: Facility Location Problem (35 pts)

Ummagumma is a very large urban area with many busy suburbs and the collection of waste across
this metropolitan area has become a challenging issue for the city council. In order to reduce its
operations costs, the council has decided to revise its strategy for waste management by opening new
waste processing site(s) that will ensure that Ummagumma remains a clean and attractive urban area.
Below is a map of the urban area of Ummagumma with its suburb centres and the candidate sites for
waste processing:

The monthly transportation cost ($100/km) between a waste processing site and a suburb centre can
be determined by finding the shortest path between these points using the lines of the grid (i.e.
Manhattan or Taxi Cab distance). For example, the shortest distance between site 5 and suburb 5 is 30
km. The monthly rent for a waste processing site is proportional to its total distance to each suburb
centre, and land price is more expensive closer to a suburb. The monthly rents for each site are given
in following table:

Opening cost for each waste processing site

Site 1

Site 2

Site 3

Site 4

Site 5

$1000

$1200

$1800

$1300

$1400

Part A) Prepare the data file for the corresponding Uncapacitated Facility Location Problem (UFLP),
and submit a screen shot of the obtained .dat file.
Part B) To find the best waste management strategy, solve the problem in AMPL. You can use the
model introduced in the workshop on the UFLP. Which site(s) should be opened and which suburb(s)
are assigned to each open site? What is the value of the objective function?
For the remaining of Problem 2: Now assume that each waste processing site has a limited monthly
capacity given in the table below:
Capacity for each waste processing site (in tons)
Site 1

Site 2

Site 3

Site 4

Site 5

80

60

40

50

70

And assume that the waste demand, i.e. the monthly amount of waste produced, is estimated to 50
tons for each suburb.
Part C) Assume that a waste processing site may supply more than one suburb. Prepare the data file
and solve the corresponding Capacitated Facility Location Problem (CFLP) in AMPL. How does the
solution change relative to the UFLP solution in Part B?
Part D) Waste production is forecasted to increase by 10% for each suburb in the near future. The
council of Ummagumma plans to increase the capacity of one of its waste management site in order to
absorb this upcoming excess of waste. Three projects are under consideration:
a) Project 1: Add a capacity of 30 tons to Site 1
b) Project 2: Add a capacity of 20 tons to Site 2 and 10 tons for Site 4
c) Project 3: Add a capacity of 6 tons to each waste processing site
If the three projects have the same cost, which project is the least costly for Ummagumma? Report the
optimal solution and objective value for each project, and explain and justify your answer.
Part E) Instead of all projects being of equal costs, Project 1 cost $500, Project 2 cost $1000 and
Project 3 cost $800. Given these new project costs, would your project selection change (from your
answer in Part D)? Why or why not?

Problem 3: Electricity Distribution (35 pts)

A Power company has 3 electric power plants that supply the demand of 4 cities. Each power plant
can supply the numbers of kilowatt-hours (millions of kwh) of electricity shown in Table 1. The
power demands in each city, which occur at the same time, are shown in Table 2 (millions of kwh).
The cost of sending electricity from a given plant to a given city depends on the distance the
electricity must travel. Table 3 provides the annual cost in $/kwh for all power station-city pairs. The
power company seeks to minimize the cost of meeting each citys power demand.
TABLE 1: Supply from Each Power Station
Power Station
1
2
3

Supply (million kwh)

55
70
60

TABLE 2: Demand at each City

City
1
2
3
4

Demand (million kwh)

60
35
45
45

TABLE 3: Transmission cost of a kwh from Power Station to City ($)

TO
FROM
PS 1
PS 2
PS 3

City 1
8
9
14

City 2
6
12
9

City 3
10
13
16

City 4
9
7
5

Part A) Write a mathematical formulation for this problem. Clearly identify the objective function,
constraints, and decision variables.
Part B) Solve the problem using AMPL. Include a screen shot of your data file, model file, and
solution.
Part C) The Power company seeks to reduce operations costs, and is currently debating between three
alternative options to do so:
a) Project 1: The power company can rebuild Plant 1, and in doing so double its capacity. The
annual cost of Project 1 is $75 million.
b) Project 2: The power company can invest in a new technology that will improve transmission
efficiency, and decrease the cost of transmission by 5% for all power station-city pairs. The
annual cost of Project 2 is $40 million.
c) Project 3: The power company can invest in a State-wide sustainability incentive program
which will reduce total power demand in each city by 5%. The annual cost of Project 3 is $25
million.
The company can choose only one project. Which project is best? Report the optimal solution and
objective value for each project, and explain and justify you answer.