INTEGER

PROGRAMMING CASE
PROBLEM 

PROBLEM
STATEMENT 

The Avalon Floor Cleaner Company is trying to determine the number of salespeople it
should allocate to its three regions—the East, the Midwest, and the West. The company
has 100 salespeople that it wants to assign to the three regions. The annual average
unit sales volume achieved by a salesperson in each region is as follows: 

REGION UNITS PER SALESPERSON

East 25,000

Midwest 18,000

West 31,000 

Because travel distances, costs of living, and other factors vary among the three
regions, the annual cost of having a salesperson is $5,000 in the East, $11,000 in the
Midwest, and $7,000 in the West. The company has $700,000 budgeted for expenses.
To ensure nationwide exposure for its product, the company has decided that each
region must have at least 10 salespeople. 

The company wants to know how many salespeople to allocate to each region to
maximize total average units sold. 

Formulate an integer programming model for this problem and solve it by using the
computer. 

Maximize Z = 25,000x1 + $18,000x2 + $31,000x3

where:
Z = total average units sold
x1 = east region
x2 = midwest region
x3 = west region
Maximize Z = 25,000x1 + $18,000x2 + $31,000x3
subject to
x1 + x2 + x3 = 100
$5000 x1 + $11000 x2 + $7000 x3 <= $700,000
x1 ≥ 10
x2 ≥ 10
x3 ≥ 10
x1 ≥ 0
x2 ≥ 0
x3 ≥ 0

Constraint 1 – 100 sales people assigned

Constraint 2 – annual cost
Constraint 3 – 5 - at least 10 sales people
Constraint 6 – 8 – all values must be an integer
 A s s t a t e d f r

maximize the total average units sold, 20 sales person must be allocated to east
region, 10 to the Midwest region, and 70 to the west region in order to maximize
and reach 2, 850,000.