Biel Benito 10/25/2011 Prof.

Lawrence Highlander Group OM_375 - Take Home Exam #2

Chapter 10 Problem # 9
9. Scott and Associates, Inc., is an accounting firm that has three new clients. Project leaders will be assigned to the three clients. Based on the different backgrounds and experiences of the leaders, the various leaderclient assignments differ in terms of projected completion times. The possible assignments and the estimated completion times in days are as follows: Client Project Leader Jackson Ellis Smith 1 10 14 22 2 16 22 24 3 32 40 34

a. Develop a network representation of this problem. b. Formulate the problem as a linear program, and solve. What is the total time required?

Answer:
a.)

A linear programming model can be used to solve this Project Leader to Client problem. We use double-subscripted decision variables, with A1 denoting the completion time of Project Leader (1) Jackson with Client 1, A2 denoting the completion time of Project Leader (1) Jackson with Client 2, and so on. In general, the decision variable for completion time of Project Leader x, and Client y are written as follows:
A, B, C = completion times it takes the originating Project Leader to Clients 1, 2, and 3.

Because the objective is to minimize the completion time required for the project, we can use the data table given within the problem to develop the following completion expressions:
Projects required completion time for Project Leader (1) Jackson= (10*A1) + (16*A2) + (32*A3) Projects required completion time for Project Leader (2) Ellis = (14*B1) + (22*B2) + (40*B3) Projects required completion time for Project Leader (3) Smith = (22*C1) + (24*C2) + (34*C3)

The sum of these expressions provides the objective function showing the total completion time for Scott and Associates, Inc.

The Accounting firms problems need constraints because each Project Leader has limited time and each client has a required time demand. We consider the limited time constraints first. Since each Project Leader can only work with one Client at a time, the limited time constraint for each Project Leader is:
(A1 + A2 +A3 ) <= 1; (B1 + B2 +B3 ) <= 1; (C1 +C2 +C3 ) <= 1;

And to Optimize the Best Match of which Project Leader is to which Client, total time completion constraint must be added for all to just equal to 1 only:
(A1 + B1 +C1 ) = 1; (A2 + B2 +C2 ) = 1; (A3 +B3 +C3 ) = 1;

(where A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, and C3 cannot be less than 0, or be negative time)

b.)

According to Minitab results, the Optimal solution is to have Project Leader (1) Jackson work with Client 2, and Project Leader (2) Ellis work with Client 1, and finally Project Leader (3) Smith work with Client 3. The entire project would take 64 days to complete as the Optimal Solution.