7 DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Problem Sheet on Duality and Sensitivity Analysis

1. Consider the Linear Programming problem:

Maximize Z = -X1 + 7X2 - 5X3 + 14X4

Subject to 3X1 + 4X2 + 5X3 + 6X4 < 24

-X1 + X2 - 2X3 + 2X4 < 4

Xj > 0

a) Write the dual to the given problem and verify that (1,4) is a feasible solution
to the dual.

b) Use information in part (a) to obtain optimal solutions to primal and dual.

c) Suppose the constraint

X1 + X2 + X3 + X4 < 8 is imposed on the problem, find the optimal solutions to

primal and dual.

2. Consider the LPP

Maximize Z = 8X1 + 4X2 + 9X3

Subject to 7X1 + 6X2 + X3 < 20

4X1 + 3X2 + 2X3 < 29

Xj > 0

Write the dual to this problem. Solve the dual optimally and obtain the optimal
solution to the primal using complementary slackness conditions.

3. Construct an LPP such that neither the primal nor the dual has feasible
solutions.

4. The Shortest Path Problem:

A person located in City 1 wants to reach City 5. The network, connecting the cities
is shown along with the time taken to travel. The problem is to determine the path
that takes the shortest time to travel from City 1 to City 5.

a) Formulate the problem as an LPP by considering decision variables Xij = 1 if

i-j is in the shortest path and zero otherwise.

b) Verify that you have as many variables as the number of arcs and as many
constraints as the number of nodes.

c) Rewrite your formulation such that every variable has a positive coefficient in
one constraint and a negative coefficient in another.

d) Write the dual to part (c) considering all Xij > 0

e) Put Y5 = 0 and solve the dual optimally by inspection.

f) Obtain the optimal solution to the primal using complementary slackness

theorem.

5) A factory manufactures three products. Three resources -- technical services,

labour and administration -- are required to produce these products. The following
table gives the requirements on each of the resources for the three products:
_____________________________________________________________
PRODUCT RESOURCES (HOURS) UNIT
___________________________________
Technical Services Labour Administration PROFIT (Rs.)
____________________________________________________________

1 1 10 2 10

2 1 4 2 6

3 1 5 6 4
______________________________________________________________

There are 100 hours of technical services 600 hours of labour and 300 hours of
administration available. In order to determine the optimal product mix which
maximizes the total profit, the following linear program was solved:

Maximize: Z = 10X1 + 6X2 + 4X3

Subject to X1 + X2 + X3 < 100 (Technical)

10X1 + 4X2 + 5X3 < 600 (labour)

2X1 + 2X2 + 6X3 < 300 (Administration)

X1, X2, X3 > 0

X1, X2, and X3 are the quantities of product 1, product 2 and product 3 produced.
The optimal solution is given by the following tableau, where X 4, X5, and X6 are the
slack variables:

__________________________________________
Basis X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 b
__________________________________________

X2 0 1 5/6 10/6 -1/6 0 420/6

X1 1 0 1/6 -4/6 1/6 0 200/6

X6 0 0 4 -2 0 1 100
___________________________________________

Cj-Zj 0 0 -16/6 -20/6 -4/6 0 Z= 4400/6

___________________________________________

Using sensitivity analysis, answer the following with respect to the above optimal
tableau:

(a) What should be the profit of product 3 before it becomes worthwhile to

manufacture? Find the most profitable product mix if the profit on product 3 were
increased to 50/6

(b) What is the range on the profit of product 1 so that the current solution is still
optimal?

(c) It is believed that the estimate of the available hours of technical services
might be wrong. The correct estimate is 100 + 10a where `a' is some unknown
parameter. Find the range of values of `a' within which the given product mix is still
optimal.

(d) Determine the shadow prices of all the resources.

(e) The manufacturing department comes up with a proposal to produce a new

product requiring 1 hour of technical services, 4 hours of labour, and 3 hours of
administration. The marketing and sales department predict that the product can be
sold at a unit profit of Rs.8/-. What should be the management's decision?

6. Messrs. Joe Bless Chemicals have to blend three types of raw materials say,
P, Q and R, supplied respectively by Pai, Qadar Batcha and Rasayan Ram, in order
to obtain their final product. The costs of the raw materials, P, Q, and R are Rs.5,
Rs.3, and Re.1 per litre respectively. Each raw material contains two essential
ingredients, viz., sulphur and phosphorous, expressed in grams per litre. The final
product must contain a specified minimum amount of these ingredients in every
barrel. Each barrel contains one or more of the raw materials in sufficient quantities
to fulfil the minimum specifications on sulphur and phosphorus. Once the
specifications are met, the remaining capacity of the barrel is filled by another cheap
liquid at negligible cost.
The following L.P. Problem was formulated to determine the least cost solution.

Minimize w = 5Y1 + 3Y2 + Y3

Subject to 2Y1 + 2Y2 + Y3 > 8 (Sulphur)

3Y1 + Y2 + 2Y3 > 6 (Phosphorus)

Y1, Y2, Y3, > 0

The optimal simplex tableau without the artificial variables columns is given below:
Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5
______________________________________________________________
Y3 2 2 1 -1 0 8

Y5 1 3 0 -2 1 10
______________________________________________________________
3 1 0 1 0 w=8
______________________________________________________________

Noting that SUBDIVISIONS ARE INDEPENDENT OF each other answer the

following questions:

a) Qadar Batcha, who supplies the raw material Q, wants to lower his price so
that he can manage to sell some quantity of Q to Joe Bless Chemicals. What price
of Q should be quote to strike a deal with Joe?

b) Pai, the guy who sells P, is a more shady character. He is trying to convince
Rasayan Ram that he is being exploited by Joe and so he should raise his price. By
how much can the price of R increase without changing the current optimal
solution?

c) Suppose the B.I.S. changes the specification on sulphur content - what

extent of change will alter the current basis?

d) A fourth supplier, Sav Grakki, offers to sell a raw material `S' which contains
3 gms. of sulphur and 2 gms. of phosphorus per litre. What price of `S' would
make Joe Bless think of buying it?

e) Meanwhile, Pai is getting desperate. He now claims that he has increased

the sulphur content in P. What should the new sulphur content in P be, so that Pai
can succeed in selling it to Joe?

f) The BIS imposes one more specification on the final product with reference
to a third ingredient. After some quick laboratory analyses, Joe frames the third
constraint as:
0.1 Y1 + 0.2 Y2 + 0.3 Y3 > 3

What is the new optimal solution?