Problem 3: Hospital Assignment The director of Burtonville Civil Defense Agency has been

ordered to draw up a disaster plan for assigning casualties to hospitals in the event of a serious
earthquake. For simplicity, we will assume that causalities will occur at two points in the city and will
be transported to three hospitals. It is estimated that there will be 300 casualties at point A and 200
at point B. Travel times to hospitals 1, 2, and 3 are 25, 15, and 10 minutes, respectively; from point B
they are 20, 5, and 15 minutes. Hospital capacities for emergency cases are 250, 150, and 150 patients.
How should the victims be assigned to hospitals to minimize the total time lost in transporting them?

The objective is to minimize the total time lost to transport.

The variables that the policy maker controls are the number of victims sent to each hospital to each site
(2 sites X 3 hospitals = 6 variables).

The constraints are the capacity of each hospital and the number of victims at each site.

The empty solver table looks like this if Xab represents number transported from site a to hospital b:

Variables XA1 XA2 XA3 XB1 XB2 XB3

Weights Objective
Minutes per victim

Constraints Equation LT,GT,etc. Value

Site A
Site B
Hospital 1 Capacity
Hospital 2 Capacity
Hospital 3 Capacity

The weights in the objective function are the minutes per victim for each transportation option: 25, 10,
15, 20, 5, 15:

25XA1 + 10XA2 + 15XA3 + 20XB1 + 5XB2 + 15XB3

The constraint values are given by

Site A 300, Site B 200, Hospital 1 250, Hospital 2 150, Hospital 3 150. Each variable contributes to the
hospital and site constraints of the entities at either end of the transport. These get a 1 in the table with
other entries being 0. The equations are

Site A XA1 + XA2 + XA3 = 300

Site B XB1 + XB2 + XB3 = 200

Hospital 1 Capacity XA1 + XB1 ≤ 250

Hospital 2 Capacity XA2 + XB2 ≤ 150

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Hospital 3 Capacity XA3 + XB3 ≤ 150

Variables XA1 XA2 XA3 XB1 XB2 XB3

150 0 150 50 150 0
Weights Objective
Minutes per victim 25 15 10 20 5 15

Constraints Equation LT,GT,etc. Value

Site A 1 1 1 0 0 0 300 300
Site B 0 0 0 1 1 1 200 200
Hospital 1 Capacity 1 0 0 1 0 0 200 250
Hospital 2 Capacity 0 1 0 0 1 0 150 150
Hospital 3 Capacity 0 0 1 0 0 1 150 150

We set this up in solver for simplex-LP with the addition of integer constraints and non-negative
variables.

The results given by solver are

Variables XA1 XA2 XA3 XB1 XB2 XB3

150 0 150 50 150 0
Weights Objective
Minutes per victim 25 15 10 20 5 15 7000

In other words, we send 150 victims from site A to hospital 1, none from that site to hospital 2, and the
other 150 to hospital 3. From site B we send 50 to hospital 1, 150 to hospital 2 and none to hospital 3.

REPORTS
Solver generates three reports (shown below).

Binding Constraints and Slack. From the Answer report, in addition to the information already
mentioned, we see which of our constraints are binding or not. In this case, the hospital 2 and 3
capacities are binding, as are the number of victims, but the capacity of hospital 1 is not. In other words,
this resource is not maxxed out by this situation but the others are. The slack value of 50 means that at
this optimal point there are 50 capacity units at hospital 1 that are not being used.

Allowable Increase/Decrease and Shadow Prices. For each variable and constraint, Solver gives us an
allowable increase and decrease. For variables, this represents how much the coefficient could change
(up or down) without changing the values of the variables in the solution (though it might change the
value of the objective function). In this case we see that XB2 could be infinitely higher or lower without
changing the solution. This means that the optimal solution is independent of the length of the trip from
site B to hospital 2.

The increase/descrease on the constraints is one measure of how sensitive the solution is to changes in
this constraint. In this case,
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All three hospitals’ capacity can increase by any amount without changing the solution but any decrease
in 2 or 3 would change it while hospital one could have up to 50 fewer slots without changing the
solution. The number of victims cannot increase without changing the solution but the number at site B
can be as low as 50 before the solution would change.

Finally, the shadow prices indicate the marginal cost of the constraint – telling us what change we can
expect for a one unit change in the value of the constraint. In the table below what we see is that a one
unit increase in hospital 2 or 3 capacity will result in a 15 minute savings in total transport time. An
increase in one victim at either site, though, will increase the total transport time (A by 25 and B by 20
minutes).

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Microsoft Excel 14.1 Answer Report
Worksheet: [hospital-transport-solver-solution.xlsx]Hospital Transport
Report Created: 10/17/2013 1:36:49 PM
Result: Solver found a solution. All constraints and optimality conditions are satisfied.
Solver Engine
Engine: Simplex LP Solution Time: 0.571563 Seconds. Iterations:
1 Subproblems: 0
Solver Options
Max Time Unlimited, Iterations Unlimited, Precision 0.000001
Max Subproblems Unlimited, Max Integer Sols Unlimited, Integer Tolerance 1%, Assume NonNegative

Objective Cell (Min)

Cell Name Original Value Final Value
$F$2 XB2 150 150
Variable Cells
Cell Name Original Value Final Value Integer
$F$2 XB2 150 150 Contin
Constraints
Cell Name Cell Value Formula Status Slack
$H$10 Hospital 2 Capacity Equation 150 $H$10<=$J$10 Binding 0
$H$11 Hospital 3 Capacity Equation 150 $H$11<=$J$11 Binding 0
$H$7 Site A Equation 300 $H$7=$J$7 Binding 0
$H$8 Site B Equation 200 $H$8=$J$8 Binding 0
$H$9 Hospital 1 Capacity Equation 200 $H$9<=$J$9 Not Binding 50
Microsoft Excel 14.1 Sensitivity Report
Worksheet: [hospital-transport-solver-solution.xlsx]Hospital Transport
Report Created: 10/17/2013 2:18:18 PM
Variable Cells
Final Reduced Objective Allowable Allowable
Cell Name Value Cost Coefficient Increase Decrease
$B$2 XA1 150 0 25 5 10
$C$2 XA2 0 5 15 1E+30 5
$D$2 XA3 150 0 10 10 1E+30
$E$2 XB1 50 0 20 10 5
$F$2 XB2 150 0 5 5 1E+30
$G$2 XB3 0 10 15 1E+30 10
Constraints
Final Shadow Constraint Allowable Allowable
Cell Name Value Price R.H. Side Increase Decrease
$H$10 Hospital 2 Capacity Equation 150 -15 150 50 50
$H$11 Hospital 3 Capacity Equation 150 -15 150 150 50
$H$7 Site A Equation 300 25 300 50 150
$H$8 Site B Equation 200 20 200 50 50
$H$9 Hospital 1 Capacity Equation 200 0 250 1E+30 50

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