EJERCICIOS EXTRAS - INVESTIGACION DE OPERACIONES (5 PUNTOS FINALES)

PROBLEMA DE PROGRAMACION LINEAL - WALSH’S JUICE COMPANY

Walsh’s Juice Company produces three products from unprocessed grape juice—bottled juice, frozen juice concentrate, and jelly. It
purchases grape juice from three vineyards near the Great Lakes. The grapes are harvested at the vineyards and immediately converted
into juice at plants at the vineyard sites and stored there in refrigerated tanks. The juice is then transported to four different plants in
Virginia, Michigan, Tennessee, and Indiana, where it is processed into bottled grape juice, frozen juice concentrate, and jelly. Vineyard
output typically differs each month in the harvesting season, and the plants have different processing capacities. In a particular month
the vineyard in New York has 1,400 tons of unprocessed grape juice available, whereas the vineyard in Ohio has 1,700 tons and the
vineyard in Pennsylvania has 1,100 tons. The processing capacity per month is 1,200 tons of unprocessed juice at the plant in Virginia,
1,100 tons of juice at the plant in Michigan, 1,400 tons at the plant in Tennessee, and 1,400 tons at the plant in Indiana. The cost per ton
of transporting unprocessed juice from the vineyards to the plant is as follows:

The plants are different ages, have different equipment, and have different wage rates; thus, the cost of processing each product at each
plant ($/ton) differs, as follows:
This month the company needs to process a total of 1,200 tons of bottled juice, 900 tons of frozen concentrate, and 700 tons of jelly at
the four plants combined. However, the production process for frozen concentrate results in some juice dehydration, and the process for
jelly includes a cooking stage that evaporates water content. To process 1 ton of frozen concentrate requires 2 tons of unprocessed juice;
1 ton of jelly requires 1.5 tons of unprocessed juice; and 1 ton of bottled juice requires 1 ton of unprocessed juice. Walsh’s management
wants to determine how many tons of grape juice to ship from each of the vineyards to each of the plants and the number of tons of each
product to process at each plant. Thus, management needs a model that includes both the logistical aspects of this problem and the
production processing aspects. It wants a solution that will minimize total costs, including the cost of transporting grape juice from the
vineyards to the plants and the product processing costs. Help Walsh’s solve this problem by formulating a linear programming model
and solve it by using the computer.

PROBLEMA DE TRANSPORTE - SCHEDULING AT HAWK SYSTEMS, INC.

Jim Huang and Roderick Wheeler were sales representatives in a computer store at a shopping mall in Arlington, Virginia, when they
got the idea of going into business in the burgeoning and highly competitive microcomputer market. Jim went to Taiwan over the
summer to visit relatives and made a contact with a new firm producing display monitors for microcomputers, which was looking for
an East Coast distributor in America. Jim made a tentative deal with the firm to supply a maximum of 500 monitors per month and
called Rod to see if he could find a building they could operate out of and some potential customers.

Rod went to work. The first thing he did was send bids to several universities in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania for contracts as
an authorized vendor for monitors at the schools. Next, he started looking for a facility to operate from. Jim and his operation would
provide minor physical modifications to the monitors, including some labeling, testing, packaging, and then storage in preparation for
shipping. He knew he needed a building with good security, air-conditioning, and a loading dock. However, his search proved to be
more difficult than he anticipated. Building space of the type and size he needed was very limited in the area and very expensive. Rod
began to worry that he would not be able to find a suitable facility at all. He decided to look for space in the Virginia and Maryland
suburbs and countryside; and although he found some good locations, the shipping costs out to those locations were extremely high.

Disheartened by his lack of success, Rod sought help from his sister-in-law Miriam, a local real estate agent. Rod poured out the details
of his plight to Miriam over dinner at Rod’s mother’s house, and she was sympathetic. She told Rod that she owned a building in
Arlington that might be just what he was looking for, and she would show it to him the next day. As promised, she showed him the
ground floor of the building, and it was perfect. It had plenty of space, good security, and a nice office; furthermore, it was in an upscale
shopping area with lots of good restaurants. Rod was elated; it was just the type of environment he had envisioned for them to set up
their business in. However, his joy soured when he asked Miriam what the rent was. She said she had not worked out the details, but the
rent would be around $100,000 per year.
Rod was shocked, so Miriam said she would offer him an alternative: a storage fee of $10 per monitor for every monitor purchased and
in stock the first month of operation, with an increase of $2 per month per unit for the remainder of the year. Miriam explained that
based on what he told her about the business, they would not have any sales until the universities opened around the end of August or
the first of September, and that their sales would fall off to nothing in May or June. She said her offer meant that she would share in
their success or failure. If they ended up with some university contracts, she would reap a reward along with them; if they did not sell
many monitors, she would lose on the deal. But in the summer months after school ended, if they had no monitors in stock, they would
pay her nothing. Rod mulled this over, and it sounded fair. He loved the building. Also, he liked the idea that they would not be indebted
for a flat lease payment and that the rent was essentially on a per-unit basis. If they failed, at least they would not be stuck with a huge
lease. So he agreed to Miriam’s offer. When Jim returned from Taiwan, he was skeptical about Rod’s lease arrangement with Miriam.
He was chagrined that Rod hadn’t performed a more thorough analysis of the costs, but Rod explained that it was pretty hard to do an
analysis when he did not know their costs, potential sales, or selling price. Jim said he had a point, and his concern was somewhat offset
by the fact that Rod had gotten contracts with five universities as an authorized vendor for monitors at a selling price of $180 per unit.
So the two sat down to begin planning their operation. First, Jim said he had thought of a name for their enterprise, Hawk Systems, Inc.,
which he said stood for Huang and Wheeler Computers. When Rod asked how Jim got a k out of computers, Jim cited poetic license.
Jim said that he had figured that the total cost of the units for them—including the purchase of the units, shipping, and their own material,
labor, and administrative costs—would be $100 per unit during the first 4 months but would then drop to $90 per month for the following
4 months and, finally, to $85 per month for the remainder of the year. Jim said that the Taiwan firm was anticipating being able to lower
the purchase price because its production costs would go down as it gained experience. Jim thought their own costs would go down,
too. He also explained that they would not be able to return any items, so it was important that they develop a good order plan that would
minimize costs. This was now much more important than Jim had originally thought because of their peculiar lease arrangement based
on their inventory level. Rod said that he had done some research on past computer sales at the universities they had contracted with
and had come up with the following sales forecast for the next 9 months of the academic year (from September through May):

September 340
October 650
November 420
December 200
January 660
February 550
March 390
April 580
May 120
Rod explained to Jim that computer equipment purchases at universities go up in the fall, then drop until January, and then peak again
in April, just before university budgets are exhausted at the end of the academic year. Jim then asked Rod what kind of monthly ordering
schedule from Taiwan they should develop to meet demand while minimizing their costs. Rod said that it was a difficult question, but
he remembered that when he was in college in a management science course, he had seen a production schedule developed using a
transportation model. Jim suggested he get out his old textbook and get busy, or they would be turning over all their profits to Miriam.
However, before Rod was able to develop a schedule, Jim got a call from the Taiwan firm, saying that it had gotten some more business
later in the year and it could no longer supply up to 500 units per month. Instead, it could supply 700 monitors for the first 4 months and
300 for the next 5. Jim and Rod worried about what this would do to their inventory costs.

A. Formulate and solve a transportation model to determine an optimal monthly ordering and distribution schedule for Hawk Systems
that will minimize costs.
B. If Hawk Systems has to borrow approximately $200,000 to start up the business, will it end up making anything the first year?
C. What will the change in the supply pattern from the Taiwan firm cost Hawk Systems?
D. How did Miriam fare with her alternative lease arrangement? Would she have been better off with a flat $100,000 lease payment?

PROBLEMA RUTA MAS CORTA – AROUND THE WORLD

In the novel Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, Phileas T. Fogg wagered four of his fellow members of the Reform Club in
London £5,000 apiece that he could travel around the world in 80 days. This would have been an astounding feat in 1872, the year in
which the novel is set. Then, the fastest modes of travel were rail and ship; however, much of the world still traveled by coach, wagon,
horse, elephant, or donkey, or on foot. Phileas Fogg was not a frivolous man. He would not have undertaken such a large wager if he
had not carefully researched the feasibility of such a trip and been confident of his chances. Although he undoubtedly analyzed various
routes to circumnavigate the globe, he did not have knowledge of techniques such as the shortest route method, nor did he have a
computer to help him select an optimal route. If he had, he might have chosen a route that would have completed his trip in less than 80
days or possibly would not have been so quick to make his wager. On the next page is a network of the various routes of the day for
traveling around the world from London. Fogg traveled eastward. The travel time, in days, is shown on each branch. Travel times are
based as much on available modes of transportation at the time as on distance. Using the shortest route method (and the computer),
select the best route for Mr. Fogg. Would the route you determined have won him his wager?
PROBLEMA DE PROGRAMACION ENTERA- NEW OFFICES AT ATLANTIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Atlantic Management Systems is a consulting firm that specializes in developing computerized decision support systems for computer
manufacturing companies. The firm currently has offices in Chicago, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, and Houston. It is considering opening new
offices in one or more cities— including Atlanta, Boston, Washington, DC, St. Louis, Miami, Denver, and Detroit—and it has $14
million available for this purpose. Because of the highly specialized nature of its high-tech consulting work, the firm must necessarily
staff any new offices with a minimum number of its employees from its existing offices. However, it has a limited number of employees
available to transfer to any new offices. In addition, the cost of transferring employees depends on the city they are leaving and the city
to which they might move. Following are the costs for opening a new office in each of the prospective cities and the start-up staffing
needs at each office:

The numbers of employees available for transfer from each of the current offices are as follows:
The costs (in thousands of dollars) of transferring an employee from an existing office to a new office differ according to housing costs
and moving expenses plus cost of living adjustments. They are as follows:

The firm has ranked the possible new offices according to their profit potential, with Washington, DC, being the best (i.e., greatest
potential), as follows:

In addition, the firm wants at least one new office in the Midwest (i.e., Detroit and/or St. Louis) and one new office in the Southeast
(i.e., Atlanta or Miami). Formulate and solve an integer programming model to help Atlantic Systems determine how many new offices
it should open, where they should be located, and how to transfer employees.

PROBLEMA ARBOL DE DECISION- THE CAROLINA COUGARS

The Carolina Cougars is a major league baseball expansion team beginning its third year of operation. The team had losing records in
each of its first 2 years and finished near the bottom of its division. However, the team was young and generally competitive. The team’s
general manager, Frank Lane, and manager, Biff Diamond, believe that with a few additional good players, the Cougars can become a
contender for the division title and perhaps even for the pennant.
They have prepared several proposals for free agent acquisitions to present to the team’s owner, Bruce Wayne. Under one proposal the
team would sign several good available free agents, including two pitchers, a good fielding shortstop, and two power-hitting outfielders
for $52 million in bonuses and annual salary. The second proposal is less ambitious, costing $20 million to sign a relief pitcher, a solid,
good-hitting infielder, and one power-hitting outfielder.

The final proposal would be to stand pat with the current team and continue to develop. General Manager Lane wants to lay out a
possible season scenario for the owner so he can assess the long-run ramifications of each decision strategy. Because the only thing the
owner understands is money, Frank wants this analysis to be quantitative, indicating the money to be made or lost from each strategy.
To help develop this analysis, Frank has hired his kids, Penny and Nathan, both management science graduates from Tech.

Penny and Nathan analyzed league data for the previous five seasons for attendance trends, logo sales (i.e., clothing, souvenirs, hats,
etc.), player sales and trades, and revenues. In addition, they interviewed several other owners, general managers, and league officials.
They also analyzed the free agents that the team was considering signing. Based on their analysis, Penny and Nathan feel that if the
Cougars do not invest in any free agents, the team will have a 25% chance of contending for the division title and a 75% chance of being
out of contention most of the season. If the team is a contender, there is a .70 probability that attendance will increase as the season
progresses and the team will have high attendance levels (between 1.5 million and 2.0 million) with profits of $170 million from ticket
sales, concessions, advertising sales, TV and radio sales, and logo sales. They estimate a .25 probability that the team’s attendance will
be mediocre (between 1.0 million and 1.5 million) with profits of $115 million and a .05 probability that the team will suffer low
attendance (less than 1.0 million) with profit of $90 million. If the team is not a contender, Penny and Nathan estimate that there is .05
probability of high attendance with profits of $95 million, a .20 probability of medium attendance with profits of $55 million, and a .75
probability of low attendance with profits of $30 million.

If the team marginally invests in free agents at a cost of $20 million, there is a 50–50 chance it will be a contender. If it is a contender,
then later in the season it can either stand pat with its existing roster or buy or trade for players that could improve the team’s chances
of winning the division. If the team stands pat, there is a .75 probability that attendance will be high and profits will be $195 million.
There is a .20 probability that attendance will be mediocre with profits of $160 million and a .05 probability of low attendance and
profits of $120 million. Alternatively, if the team decides to buy or trade for players, it will cost $8 million, and the probability of high
attendance with profits of $200 million will be .80. The probability of mediocre attendance with $170 million in profits will be .15, and
there will be a .05 probability of low attendance, with profits of $125 million

If the team is not in contention, then it will either stand pat or sell some of its players, earning approximately $8 million in profit. If the
team stands pat, there is a .12 probability of high attendance, with profits of $110 million; a .28 probability of mediocre attendance, with
profits of $65 million; and a .60 probability of low attendance, with profits of $40 million. If the team sells players, the fans will likely
lose interest at an even faster rate, and the probability of high attendance with profits of $100 million will drop to .08, the probability of
mediocre attendance with profits of $60 million will be .22, and the probability of low attendance with profits of $35 million will be
.70.

The most ambitious free-agent strategy will increase the team’s chances of being a contender to 65%. This strategy will also excite the
fans most during the off-season and boost ticket sales and advertising and logo sales early in the year. If the team does contend for the
division title, then later in the season it will have to decide whether to invest in more players. If the Cougars stand pat, the probability
of high attendance with profits of $210 million will be .80, the probability of mediocre attendance with profits of $170 million will be
.15, and the probability of low attendance with profits of $125 million will be .05. If the team buys players at a cost of $10 million, then
the probability of having high attendance with profits of $220 million will increase to .83, the probability of mediocre attendance with
profits of $175 million will be .12, and the probability of low attendance with profits of $130 million will be .05.

If the team is not in contention, it will either sell some players’ contracts later in the season for profits of around $12 million or stand
pat. If it stays with its roster, the probability of high attendance with profits of $110 million will be .15, the probability of mediocre
attendance with profits of $70 million will be .30, and the probability of low attendance with profits of $50 million will be .55. If the
team sells players late in the season, there will be a .10 probability of high attendance with profits of $105 million, a .30 probability of
mediocre attendance with profits of $65 million, and a .60 probability of low attendance with profits of $45 million.

Assist Penny and Nathan in determining the best strategy to follow and its expected value.

PROBLEMA DE PROGRAMACION ENTERA- SCHEDULING TELEVISION ADVERTISING SLOTS AT THE UNITED

BROADCAST NETWORK

The United Broadcast Network (UBN) sells to advertis- ers commercial advertising slots on its television shows. The
network announces its new fall television schedule during the previous spring and shortly thereafter begins selling its
inventory of advertising slots to its customers. Long-standing priority customers receive the first opportu- nities to purchase
advertising slots. The new fall season be- gins in the third week of September. Advertising slots are mostly 15 seconds and
30 seconds in duration. The net- work develops a detailed sales plan for the year, typically on a monthly, bimonthly, 6-
week, or quarterly basis. Ad- vertisers generally have certain shows in mind that they prefer to advertise on in order to reach
a certain demo- graphic audience that they want to market their product to, as well as a specific advertising budget. The
network sells advertising slots at rates based on a performance score related to the popularity of a show, primarily
determined by demographics and audience size.
Nanocom, a business software development firm, wants to purchase 30- and 15-second advertising slots on several shows
this coming fall. Nanocom wants to reach an older, more mature, upper-income audience that is likely to include many
high-tech businesspeople. It has an advertis- ing budget of $600,000, and it has informed the UBN ad- vertising staff that it
prefers to purchase ads on the following shows: Bayside, Newsline, The Hour, Cops and Lawyers, The Judge, Friday Night
Football, and ER Doctor. Newsline and The Hour are news magazine shows, whereas the others are adult dramas, except
for Friday Night Football, which is professional football. Nanocom wants at least 50% of the total number of advertising
slots it purchases to be on Newsline, The Hour, and Friday Night Football. Nanocom would like UBN to develop a sales
plan covering the 6-week period beginning with the third week in October through November (including the November
sweeps).

As indicated, UBN bases its sales plans on perform- ance scores for the different shows. The primary objective of both
UBN and the advertiser is to develop a sales plan that will achieve the highest total performance score. The performance
scores are based on several factors, including how well the show matches the desired audience demo- graphics, the audience
strength of the show, the historical ratings for the time slot, the competing shows in the same time slot, and the performance
of adjacent shows.

The network sets its advertising rates based on these performance scores. Both the performance scores and the rates are then
multiplied by a weighting factor that is based on the week of the show and, because total viewers vary according to the
week of the year, the total audience expected during that week. The following table shows the costs, performance scores,
and available inventory of advertising slots for 15- and 30-second commercials for each show:
The network advises, and Nanocom agrees, that there should be a minimum and maximum number of advertising slots
during each of the 6 weeks and that Nanocom should have at most only one ad slot (either 15 or 30 seconds) per show per
week. The following table shows the weighting factor each week and the minimum and maximum numbers of slots per
week:

Assist UBN in developing a sales plan for the 6-week period to maximize the total performance score for Nanocom.
PROBLEMA DE TRANSPORTE - WEEMOW LAWN SERVICE

WeeMow Lawn Service provides lawn service, includ- ing mowing lawns and lawn care, landscaping, and lawn
maintenance, to residential and commercial customers in the Draper town community. In the summer WeeMow has three
teams that it schedules daily for jobs. Team 1 has five members, team 2 has four members, and team 3 has three members.
On a normal summer day WeeMow will have approximately 14 jobs. Each team works 10 hours a day, but because of the
heat plus work breaks, each team actu- ally works only 45 minutes out of every hour. The follow- ing table shows the times
(in minutes) and costs (in dollars) required for each team to complete the 14 jobs for a specific day.

The WeeMow manager wants to develop a schedule of team assignments to the jobs for this day. Formulate and solve a
linear programming model to determine the assign- ments of teams to jobs that will minimize total job time for the day,
given a daily budget of $1,000. Indicate how many minutes each crew will work during the day. Next, refor- mulate and
solve this model if cost minimization is the ob- jective. Of these two models, which one do you think the manger should
select and why?

PROBLEMA DE REDES: A DAY IN PARIS

Kathleen Taylor, a student at Tech, is planning to visit her sister, Lindsey, who is living in Toulouse, France, over the
summer break. She is going to fly from Dulles Airport in Washington to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, and be- cause of
the time changes, this travel will take a full day. In Paris, Kathleen is going to spend 2 nights and 1 full day before taking
the train to Toulouse. Kathleen has never been to Paris, so she wants to spend her 1 day there seeing as many of the famous
attractions as she can, including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Arch de Tri- umph, the Pantheon,
and the Palace at Versailles. She plans to stay at a youth hostel very near Sacre Coeur in Montmartre and from there use the
Paris Metro to visit as many of the sites as she can in a day. She has downloaded a detailed Metro map from the French rail
Web site at www.ratp.fr and has discovered that the Metro system is huge, with almost 250 stations and 14 lines throughout
Paris.

There’s no question that Kathleen can get to all the sites by the Metro, but she is concerned about her limited time frame
and her ability to get from location to location quickly. She has determined the following information regarding the average
times (in minutes) between stations for each line:

She’s also guessing that
 1 minute at each station. If she has to change lines, she as- sumes it will take her at least 5
minutes. She plans to leave early in the morning, when the sites open, and she has no specific time she must be back to the
hostel.
Kathleen, a business student, would like to use some of kind of logical, systematic approach to help her plan her movement
using the Metro around the city to the different sites. Help Kathleen develop a route around the city to each of the sites she
wants to see, starting from her youth hostel in Montmartre, for the day she’ll be in Paris. Do you think she’ll be able to see
all the sites she wants to see?

PROBLEMA ARBOL DE DECISION- EVALUATING R&D PROJECTS AT WESTCOM SYSTEMS PRODUCTS COMPANY

WestCom Systems Products Company develops com- puter systems and software products for commercial sale. Each year
it considers and evaluates a number of different R&D projects to undertake. It develops a road map for each project, in the
form of a standardized decision tree that identifies the different decision points in the R&D process from the initial decision
to invest in a project’s development through the actual commercialization of the final product.

The first decision point in the R&D process is whether to fund a proposed project for 1 year. If the decision is no, then there
is no resulting cost; if the decision is yes, then the project proceeds at an incremental cost to the company. The company
establishes specific short-term, early techni- cal milestones for its projects after 1 year. If the early mile- stones are
achieved, the project proceeds to the next phase of project development; if the milestones are not achieved, the project is
abandoned. In its planning process, the com- pany develops probability estimates of achieving and not achieving the early
milestones. If the early milestones are achieved, the project is funded for further development during an extended time
frame specific to a project. At the end of this time frame, a project is evaluated according to a second set of (later) technical
milestones. Again, the company attaches probability estimates for achieving and not achieving these later milestones. If the
later milestones are not achieved, the project is abandoned.

If the later milestones are achieved, technical uncertain- ties and problems have been overcome, and the company next
assesses the project’s ability to meet its strategic business ob- jectives. At this stage, the company wants to know if the
even- tual product coincides with the company’s competencies and whether there appears to be an eventual, clear market for
the product. It invests in a product “prelaunch” to ascertain the answers to these questions. The outcomes of the prelaunch
are that either there is a strategic fit or there is not, and the com- pany assigns probability estimates to each of these two
possi- ble outcomes. If there is not a strategic fit at this point, the project is abandoned and the company loses its investment
in the prelaunch process. If it is determined that there is a strate- gic fit, then three possible decisions result: (1) The
company can invest in the product’s launch, and a successful or unsuc- cessful outcome will result, each with an estimated
probabil- ity of occurrence; (2) the company can delay the product’s launch and at a later date decide whether to launch or
aban- don; and (3) if it launches later, the outcomes are success or failure, each with an estimated probability of occurrence.
Also, if the product launch is delayed, there is always a likeli- hood that the technology will become obsolete or dated in the
near future, which tends to reduce the expected return.

The following table provides the various costs, event probabilities, and investment outcomes for five projects the company
is considering:

Determine the expected value for each project and then rank the projects accordingly for the company to consider.

PROBLEMA DE PROGRAMACION LINEAL - THE KING’S LANDING AMUSEMENT PARK

King’s Landing is a large amusement theme park located in Virginia. The park hires high school and college students to
work during the summer months of May, June, July, August, and September. The student employees operate virtually all
the highly mechanized, computerized rides; perform as en- tertainers; perform most of the custodial work during park hours;
make up the workforce for restaurants, food serv- ices, retail shops, and stores; drive trams; and park cars. Park management
has assessed the park’s monthly needs based on previous summers’ attendance at the park and the expected available
workforce. Park attendance is relatively low in May, until public schools are out, and then it in- creases through June, July,
and August, and decreases dra- matically in September, when schools reopen after Labor Day. The park is open 7 days a
week through the summer, until September, when it cuts back to weekends only. Man- agement estimates that it will require
22,000 hours of labor in each of the first 2 weeks of May, 25,000 hours during the third week of May, and 30,000 hours
during the last week in May. During the first 2 weeks of June, it will require at least 35,000 hours of labor and 40,000 hours
during the last 2 weeks in June. In July 45,000 hours will be required each week, and in August 45,000 hours will be needed
each week. In September the park will need only 12,000 hours in the first week, 10,000 hours in each of the second and
third weeks, and 8,000 hours the last week of the month.

The park hires new employees each week from the first week in May through August. A new employee mostly trains the
first week by observing and helping more experienced employees; however, he or she works approximately 10 hours under
the supervision of an expe- rienced employee. An employee is considered experi- enced after completing 1 week on the job.
Experienced employees are considered part-time and are scheduled to work 30 hours per week in order to eliminate
overtime and reduce the cost of benefits, and to give more students the opportunity to work. However, no one is ever laid
off or will be scheduled for fewer (or more) than 30 hours, even if more employees are available than needed. Man-
agement believes this is a necessary condition of employ- ment because many of the student employees move to the area
during the summer just to work in the park and live near the beach nearby. If these employees were sporadi- cally laid off
and were stuck with lease payments and other expenses, it would be bad public relations and hurt employment efforts in
future summers. Although no one is laid off, 15% of all experienced employees quit each week for a variety of reasons,
including homesickness, illness, and other personal reasons, plus some are asked to leave because of very poor job
performance.

Park management is able to start the first week in May with 700 experienced employees who worked in the park in previous
summers and live in the area. These employees are generally able to work a lot of hours on the weekends and then some
during the week; however, in May attendance is much heavier on the weekends, so most of the labor hours are needed then.
The park expects to have a pool of 1,500 available applicants to hire for the first week in May. After the first week, the pool
is diminished by the number of new employees hired the previous week, but each week through June the park gets 200 new
job applicants, which decreases to 100 new applicants each week for the rest of the summer. For example, the available
applicant pool in the second week in May would be the previous week’s pool, which in week 1 is 1,500, minus the number
of new employees hired in week 1 plus 200 new applicants. At the end of the last week in August, 75% of all the
experienced employees will quit to go back to school, and the park will not hire any new employees in September. The park
must operate in September, using experienced employees who live in the area, but the weekly attrition rate for these
employees in September drops to 10%.

Formulate and solve a linear programming model to as- sist the park’s management to plan and schedule the num- ber of
new employees it hires each week in order to minimize the total number of new employees it must hire during the summer.