Name:…………… Roll No.

:……………
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CALICUT
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Test I, Winter Semester 2020-21
VI Semester B.Tech. – Production Engineering
ME3117D Quantitative Techniques for Management
Time: 120 minutes Maximum Marks: 15
Answer ALL questions
Assume any missing data, clearly stating the assumptions
1. A Furniture manufacturing firm is planning to produce its flagship product for the (3)
month of March, April, May and June of the year 2021. The demand quantities are
1040, 1440, 1040 and 1240 units, respectively. The company has a steady
workforce(permanent) of 20 employees but can meet fluctuating production needs by
hiring and firing temporary workers. The extra costs of hiring and firing a temporary
worker in any month are $400 and $800, respectively. A permanent worker produces
24 units per month, and a temporary worker lacking experience, produces 20 units per
month. The company can produce more than needed in any month and carry the
surplus over to a succeeding month at a holding cost of $100 per unit per month.
Develop an optimal hiring/firing policy over the 4- month planning horizon
(Formulate the problem and do not solve it)
2. A tape recorder company manufactures models A, B and C, which have profit (3)
contributions per unit of Rs.15, Rs.40 and Rs.60 respectively. The weekly minimum
production requirements are 25 units per model A, 130 units for model B and 55 units
for model C. Each type of recorder requires a certain amount of time for
manufacturing of the component parts, for assembling and for packing. Specifically, a
dozen units of model A require 4 hours for manufacturing, 3 hours for assembling and
1 hour for packaging. The corresponding figures for a dozen units of model B are 2.5,
4 and 2 and for a dozen units of model C are 6, 9 and 4. During the forthcoming week,
the company has available 130 hours of manufacturing, 170 hours of assembling and
52 hours of packaging time. Formulate this problem as an Linear Programming model
so as to maximize the total profit to the company. (Formulate the problem and do not
solve it)
3. Japanese army is experimenting with three types of bombs A, B and C in which three (3)
kinds of explosives, viz., X,Y, and Z will be used. Japanese army has decided to use
atmost 600kg of explosive X, at least 480 kg of explosive Y and exactly 540 Kg
explosives Z. Bomb A requires 3, 2, 2 kg of explosives, Bomb B requires 1, 4, 3 Kgs
and bomb C requires 4,2,3 kg of explosives X, Y, Z respectively. Bomb A is expected
to give the equivalent of a 2 ton explosion, B a 3 ton and C a 4 ton explosion
respectively. Under what production schedule does the Japanese army makes a biggest
bang. (Formulate and solve the problem.)
4. A furniture company can produce four types of chairs. Each chair is first made in the (3)
carpentry shop and then furnished, waxed and polished in the finishing shop. The man-
hours required in each are:
Chair type
1 2 3 4
Carpentry Shop 4 9 7 10
 Finishing Shop 1 1 3 40
Contribution per chair (Rs.) 12 20 18 40
The total number of man-hours available per month in carpentry and finishing shops
are 6,000 and 4,000 respectively. Assume an abundant supply of raw material and an
abundant demand of finished products. a) Determine the maximum profit that the firm
can make without solving the problem with simplex method. b) Would you able to
calculate the dual price and reduced cost for the problem. comment
5. In the Tableau n for the maximization problem below, the values of the six constants (3)
α1, α2, α3, β, ρ1, ρ2, are unknown (assume there are no artificial variables):
Tableau n
x
Basis x1 x3 x4 x5 x6 Constants
2
x3 4 α1 1 0 α2 0 β
x4 -1 -5 0 1 -1 0 2
x6 α3 -3 0 0 -4 1 3
Črow ρ1 ρ2 0 0 -3 0
x1, …,x6 ≥ 0
State restrictions on the six unknowns (α1, α2, α3, β, ρ1, ρ2) which will make the
following statements true about the given tableau:
a) The current solution is optimal but alternative optimum exists.
b) The current solution is infeasible. (State which variable).
c) The current solution is a degenerate basic feasible solution. (Which variable
causes degeneracy?)
d) The current solution is feasible but the problem has no finite optimum.
e) The current solution is the unique optimum solution.
f) The current solution is feasible but the objective can be improved by replacing
x6 by x1. What will be the total change in the objective function value after the
pivot?