Deterministic Models in Operations Research

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

SEMESTER PROJECT

1. GENERAL DESCRIPTION AND REQUIREMENTS

Description:

- The team is required to formulate mathematical model of the assigned problem

- The team can encode the model EXCEL SOLVER or LINGO or CPLEX to solve the

problem with their own assumed data

Requirements:

- This is semester project that is group working. Students register to form a group of

about 3- 5 people.

- The team should work together to study carefully the asset to perform the following

jobs:

o Problem description, objectives, scope and limitation

o Build mathematical model

o Solve the small size problem by EXCEL SOLVER or CPLEX or LINGO with

assumed data

o Perform sensitivity analysis

o Propose some similar practical applications of the problem and model

o Conclusions

- Finally, each group must submit a professional report (hardcopy + softcopy) and

having a presentation (with slides in 10 minutes) with Q&A sections at the end.
Deterministic Models in Operations Research

- The performance of the group is evaluated for each member

2. TIMELINE
Step Jobs to do Duration
1 Group register 2 weeks
2 Study the problem 1 week
3 Model development 2 weeks
4 Sovle the problem with assumed data 5 weeks
5 Sensitivity Analysis 2 weeks
6 Propose Applications 1 week
7 Write report 1 week
8 Submission and presentation 1 week

3. PROJECT ASSESSMENT POLICY

Based on evaluation form:

Maximum
Criteria Your mark
mark

Problem Identification
1 10

2 Model Development 25

3 Problem Solving 25

4 Applications 15
Deterministic Models in Operations Research

Writing report
5 10
(grammar, readability, format and flow)

Oral Defense
6 15
(giving clear presentation and satisfactory answers)

Total 100

Penalty:

- Late submission 1 day: -10%

- Late submission 2 days: -20%

- Late submission >days: Submission is not accepted!

- Absent from presentation: 20%

Problem 1: The BST Company must make deliveries to 10 customerswhose respective

demands are dj for j = 1,…, 10. The company has four trucks available with capacity Lk
and daily operating costs ck for k = 1,2,3,4. A single truck cannot deliver to more than
five customers, and customer pairs {1,7}, {2,6} and {2,9} cannot be visited by the same
truck. Formulate a model to determine which trucks to use so as to minimize the cost of
delivering to all the customers.
Problem 2: A company has two products k = 1,2, one factory, two distribution centers i
=1,2 and five major clients j =1,2,…,5 whose product demands djk are known. The
company must decide which products should be handled by each center and how each
client should be serviced. The problem is to minimize total costs, where the costs include:
1) A fixed cost fik if product k is handled by distribution center i
2) Fixed costs fijk if the demand of client j for product k is satisfied by center i
3) Unit shipping costs cijk per unit of product k shipped to client j via center i
Problem 3: Paper and wood products companies need to define cutting schedules that
will maximize the total wood yeild of their forest over some planning period. Suppose
that a company with control of p =10 forest units wants to identify the best cutting
schedule over a planning horizon of k = 6 years. Forest unit i has total hectas of ai units,
and studies that the company has undertaken predict that this unit will have wij tons of
woods available for harvesting in the jth year. Based on its prediction of econimoic
conditions, the company believes that it should harvest at least lj tons of wood in year j.
due to the availability of equipment and personnel, the company can harvets at most uj
Deterministic Models in Operations Research

tons of wood in year j. Formulate the problem of determining a schedule with maximum
wood yeild
Problem 4: The Mystic Coffee Shop blends coffee on the premises for its customers. It
sells three basic blends in one-pound bags: Special, Mountain Dark, and Mill Regular. It
uses four different types of coffee to produce the blends: Brazilian, mocha,
Colombian, and mild. The shop used the following blend recipe requirements:

The cost of Brazilian coffee is $2.00 per pound, the cost of mocha is $2.75 per pound,
the cost of Colombian is $2.90 per pound, and the cost of mild is $1.70 per pound.
The shop has 110 pounds of Brazilian coffee, 70 pounds of mocha, 80 pounds of
Colombian, and 150 pounds of mild coffee available per week. The shop wants to
know the amount of each blend it should prepare each week in order to maximize
profit. Formulate and solve a linear programming model for
this problem.
Problem 5: Consider a set of potential sites N = {1,2,…,n} for the location of fire
stations. A station placed at j cost cj. We are also given a set of communities M =
{1,2,…., m} that have to be protected. The subset of communities that can be
protected from a station located at j is Mj. For example, Mj might be the set of
communities that can be reached from j in 10 minutes. Then the problem of choosing
a minimum-cost set of locations for the fire stations such that each momunity can be
reached from some fire station(s) in 10 min.
Problem 6: The Weigelt Corporation has three branch plants with excess production capacity.
Fortunately, the corporation has a new product ready to begin production, and all three plants
have this capability, so some of the excess capacity can be used in this way. This product can be
made in three sizes--large, medium, and small--that yield a net unit profit of $420, $360, and
$300, respectively. Plants 1, 2, and 3 have the excess capacity to produce 750, 900, and 450 units
per day of this product, respectively, regardless of the size or combination of sizes involved.
The amount of available in-process storage space also imposes a limitation on the
production rates of the new product. Plants 1, 2, and 3 have 13,000, 12,000, and 5,000 square
feet, respectively, of in-process storage space available for a day's production of this product.
Each unit of the large, medium, and small sizes produced per day requires 20, 15, and 12 square
feet, respectively.
Sales forecasts indicate that if available, 900, 1,200, and 750 units of the large, medium,
and small sizes, respectively, would be sold per day.
Deterministic Models in Operations Research

At each plant, some employees will need to be laid off unless most of the plant’s excess
production capacity can be used to produce the new product. To avoid layoffs if possible,
management has decided that the plants should use the same percentage of their excess capacity
to produce the new product.
Management wishes to know how much of each of the sizes should be produced by each
of the plants to maximize profit.
Formulate and solve a linear programming model for this problem.
Problem 7: CASE 3.1 Auto Assembly question (a) only and using LINGO or CPLEX to
solve the model (in the Hillier and Liberman’s book)
Problem 8: CASE 4.1 Fabrics and Fall Fashions question (b) only and using LINGO or
CPLEX to solve the model (in the Hillier and Liberman’s book)

Problem 9: CASE 6.1 Controlling Air Pollution question (a) only and using LINGO or
CPLEX to solve the model (in the Hillier and Liberman’s book)

Problem 10: CASE 9.1 Money in Motion question (a) only and using LINGO or CPLEX to
solve the model (in the Hillier and Liberman’s book)

Problem 11: CASE 11.1 Capacity Concerns question (b) only and using LINGO or CPLEX
to solve the model (in the Hillier and Liberman’s book)