BS/BF 341 TUTORIAL, Prince Daniels, Tutor
QUESTION ONE
A newly engaged couple are planning for a wedding ceremony this
month end, as per tradition the ‘Chilanga Mulilo’ is being planned were
the Bride’s family prepare various traditional meals to introduce the
groom and his family to the “food culture”. Various dishes are being
planned for this event, and invitation to special guests such as ‘CBU SB
lecturers’ have been sent. Due the high profile guests being invited the
couple has approached your Zabwino Food Events and Hire firm to
prepare meals for the Chilanga Mulilo ceremony. Three categories of
food will be prepared for the Special guest, Groom’s family, and
Ordinary guests. It has been decided that the food will consist of
Snacks, Main meal (Chickens, Sausages, Beef, Goat and pork chops),
and Beers (Punch, blacklabel, Glenfiddich, Imbote, Munkoyo, katata 7-
Days).
Due to changing market prices of commodities, you have decided that
you will prepare a maximum of 600 Snack packs, at least 480 Main meal
packs and exactly 540 Beer packs for the event. The special guests will
require 3packs of snacks, 2packs of main meal and 2packs of beers;
Groom’s family will require 1pack of Snacks, 4packs of main meal, and
3packs of beers; Ordinary guests will require 4packs of Snacks, 2packs
of main meal, and 3packs of beers.
Your Zabwino Food Events & Hire wants to obtain a profit of K200 on
Special Guests, K300 on Groom’s family and K400 on Ordinary guests
respectively.
Required:
i) Formulate the above as a linear programming problem
ii) Solve using the simplex (Big M) algorithm method, how many packs
should be made to satisfy all the types of guests invited to this event?
iii) What is the range of optimality must the Beer packs and main meal
be planned to satisfy the beer requirements for ‘extra tummy’ guests
like Mr. Lubosi?
QUESTION TWO
PRINCE DANIELS – 2024
The output from excel solver is shown below
a) What production plan should be implemented in order to maximize the
contribution of the firm's profit from this product division?
b) Suppose the standard work hours for an employee in labour, and processing
departments is 340hrs per month. How many employees should go on VSP in these
departments and what would be the impact on the production output?
c) The Director of operations is of the view that they decrease the quantity of white
spoon sugar produced by decreasing about 14500kgs of material. If they went ahead
with this decision, what quantity white spoon sugar should now be produced?
d) The Marketing Manager also thinks increasing the contract quantity supplied to
Shoprite from the current 3000kgs to 7000kgs will improve the company’s viability.
Should they do so? How will this decision impact on the company’s profitability?
e) It is also observed that Logistics costs account for a significant portion of a
company’s costs. The Procurement Manager is therefore tasked to find means of
reducing costs in the supply chain by optimizing the activities associated with supply
chain and logistics. One area which comes into the Manager’s mind is to renegotiate
the supply contracts of raw materials supplied by Mazabuka sugarcane farmers.
What should be his negotiation bargain?
f) Suppose Zimbabwe’s white sugarcane farmers offered to supply raw materials to
Zambia sugar at K6/kg. Should Zambia sugar accept this offer? Explain
g) Suppose that the company could deliver 1000kgs less than the contracted amount
of Sugar to Shoprite by paying a penalty of K6/kg shortage. Should they do so?
h) If the VSP doesn’t work according to plan, Zambia Sugar will be forced to shut
most of its operations. Suggest any three departments layoffs should begin from and
why?
PRINCE DANIELS – 2024
