Operations Research (ILO7015) SFIT, July-December 2019

Linear Programming Problem (LPP) Formulation

1. A kitchenware company wishes to schedule the production of a kitchen appliance that

requires two resources- labor and material. The company is considering three different
models and its production engineering department has furnished following data:

Model
A B C
Labor (hours per unit) 7 3 6
Material (pounds per unit) 4 4 5
Profit ($ per unit) 4 2 3

The supply of raw material is restricted to 200 pounds per day. The daily availability
of labor is 150 hours. Formulate a linear programming model to determine the daily
production rate of the various models in order to maximize total profit.

2. A machine tool company conducts a job-training program for machinists. Trained

machinist are used as teachers in the program at a ratio of one for every ten trainees.
The training program lasts for one month. From past experience it has been found that
out of ten trainees hired, only seven complete the program successfully (the
unsuccessful trainees are released).
Trained machinists are also needed for machining and the company’s requirements
for the next three months are as follows:

January 100
February 150
March 200

In addition, the company requires 250 trained machinists by April. There are 130
trained machinists available at the beginning of the year. Payroll costs per month are:

Each trainee $400

Each trained machinist $700
(machining or teaching)
Each trained machinist idle $500
(Union contract forbids firing
trained machinists)

Set up a linear programming problem that will produce the minimum cost hiring and
training schedule and meet the company’s requirements.

3. An advertising company wishes to plan an advertising campaign in three different

media- television, radio and magazines. The purpose of the advertising program is to
Operations Research (ILO7015) SFIT, July-December 2019

reach as many potential customers as possible. Results of a market study are given
below:

Television
Daytime Prime Time Radio Magazines
Cost of an advertising $40,000 $75,000 $30,000 $15,000
unit
Number of potential 400,000 900,000 500,000 200,000
customers reached per
unit
Number of women 300,000 400,000 200,000 100,000
customers reached per
unit

The company does not want to spend more than $800,000 on advertising. It further
requires that (1) at least 2 million exposures take place among women (2) advertising
on television to be limited to $500,000 (3) at least 3 advertising units be bought on
daytime television, and two units during prime time and (4) the number of advertising
units on radio and magazine should each be between 5 and 10.