Project Pickings
Tazer, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company, entered the pharmaceutical market 12 years
ago with the introduction of six new drugs. Five of the six drugs were simply permutations of
existing drugs and therefore did not sell very heavily. The sixth drug, however, addressed
hypertension and was a huge success. Since Tazer had a patent on the hypertension drug, it
experienced no competition, and profits from the hypertension drug alone kept Tazer in business.
During the past 12 years, Tazer continued a moderate amount of research and development, but
it never stumbled upon a drug as successful as the hypertension drug. One reason is that the
company never had the motivation to invest heavily in innovative research and development. The
company was riding the profit wave generated by its hypertension drug and did not feel the need
to commit significant resources to finding new drug breakthroughs. Now Tazer is beginning to
fear the pressure of competition. The patent for the hypertension drug expires in 5 years,1 and
Tazer knows that once the patent expires, generic drug manufacturing companies will swarm into
the market like vultures. Historical trends show that generic drugs decreased sales of branded
drugs by 75 percent. Tazer is therefore looking to invest significant amounts of money in research
and development this year to begin the search for a new breakthrough drug that will offer the
company the same success as the hypertension drug. Tazer believes that if the company begins
extensive research and development now, the probability of finding a successful drug shortly
after the expiration of the hypertension patent will be high. As head of research and development
at Tazer, you are responsible for choosing potential projects and assigning project directors to
lead each of the projects. After re-searching the needs of the market, analysing the shortcomings
of current drugs, and interviewing numerous scientists concerning the promising areas of
medical research, you have decided that your department will pursue five separate projects,
which are listed below:
For each of the five projects, you are only able to specify the medical ailment the research should
address, since you do not know what compounds will exist and be effective without research.
You also have five senior scientists to lead the five projects. You know that scientists are very
temperamental people and will work well only if they are challenged and motivated by the
project. To ensure that the senior scientists are assigned to projects they find motivating, you
have established a bidding system for the projects. You have given each of the five scientists 1000
bid points. They assign bids to each project, giving a higher number of bid points to projects they
most prefer to lead. The following table provides the bids from the five individual senior scientists
for the five individual projects:
You decide to evaluate a variety of scenarios you think are likely.
(a) Given the bids, you need to assign one senior scientist to ech of the five projects to maximize
the preferences of the scientists. What are the assignments?
(b) Dr. Rollins is being courted by Harvard Medical School to accept a teaching position. You are
fighting desperately to keep her at Tazer, but the prestige of Harvard may lure her away. If this
were to happen, the company would give up the project with the least enthusiasm. Which project
would not be done?
(c) You do not want to sacrifice any project, since researching only four projects decreases the
probability of finding a breakthrough new drug. You decide that either Dr. Zuner or Dr. Mickey
could lead two projects. Under these new conditions with just four senior scientists, which
scientists will lead which projects to maximize preferences?
(d) After Dr. Zuner was informed that she and Dr. Mickey are being considered for two projects,
she decided to change her bids. The following table shows Dr. Zuner’s new bids for each of the
projects
Under these new conditions with just four scientists, which scientists will lead which projects to
maximize preferences?
(e) Do you support the assignment found in part (d)? Why or why not?
(f) Now you again consider all five scientists. You decide, however, that several scientists can-
not lead certain projects. In particular, Dr. Mickey does not have experience with research on the
immune system, so he cannot lead Project Hope. His family also has a history of manic-
depression, and you feel that he would be too personally involved in Project Stable to serve as an
effective project leader. Dr. Mickey therefore cannot lead Project Stable. Dr. Kvaal also does not
have experience with research on the immune systems and cannot lead Project Hope. In
addition, Dr. Kvaal cannot lead Project Release because he does not have experience with
research on the cardiovascular system. Finally, Dr. Rollins cannot lead Project Up because her
family has a history of depression and you feel she would be too personally involved in the project
to serve as an effective leader. Because Dr. Mickey and Dr. Kvaal cannot lead two of the five
projects, they each have only 600 bid points. Dr. Rollins has only 800 bid points because she
cannot lead one of the five projects. The following table provides the new bids of Dr. Mickey, Dr.
Kvaal, and Dr. Rollins:
Which scientists should lead which projects to maximize preferences?
(g) You decide that Project Hope and Project Release are too complex to be led by only one
scientist. Therefore, each of these projects will be assigned two scientists as project leaders You
decide to hire two more scientists in order to staff all projects: Dr. Arriaga and Dr. Santos.
Because of religious reasons, the two doctors both do not want to lead Project Choice. The
following table lists all projects, scientists, and their bids.
Which scientists should lead which projects to maximize preferences?
(h) Do you think it is wise to base your decision in part (g) only on an optimal solution for an.
assignment problem?
