QUANTITATIVE TECHNIQUES (Question Bank)

Note: The actual questions in the questions may or may not be from the
question bank but the pattern will remain the same. In case a question is
changed it will be replaced by the question from the same chapter.
PART-A
Q1. Define the following w.r.t Queuing problems-(a) Arrival rate (b) Service rate
(c) Queue length (d) Balking (e) Jockeying (f) Reneging (g) Utilization rate (h)
Idle rate
Q2. What are the different decisions making environments know to you? Explain
each of them briefly.
Q3. What do you understand by the term decision making Discuss the different
steps involved in decision making in business management.
Q4. What is Linear Programming? State the significance of Linear Programming
in decision making.
Q5. What are the assumptions underlying linear programming?
Q6. What are the steps involved in solving a linear programming method by
graphical method?
Q7. What are the applications of quantitative techniques in business?
Q8. What the applications of linear programming problem in business?
Q9. What are the computational steps involved of the Simplex method in solving
the linear programming problem? How would you identify whether an optimal
solution to a problem obtained using simplex method is unique or not?
Q10. Define- (i) Slack variables (ii) Feasible solution (iii) Infeasible solution (iii)
Unbounded solution with respect a linear programming problem.
Q11. What is a transportation problem? What are the steps involved in Vogels
approximation method?
Q12.What are the steps involved in MODI method?
Q13. What is looping in a transportation problem? What is its significance?
Q14. What is an assignment problem? Distinguish between assignment model and
transportation model.
Q15. What are the steps involved in the Hungarian method?
Q16.How do you handle the following situations in an assignment problem: (i)
Unbalanced problem (ii) Maximization
Q17.What is a game? What is the importance of studying game theory?
Q18.What are the characteristics of a game?
Q19.Define: (i) Saddle point (ii) Two person zero sum game (iii) Strategy (iv) Pay
off (v) Dominance
Q20.What are the methods for solving a game?
Q21. Define Queue. Explain the various queue disciplines.
Q22 Explain the queue parameters
Q23. Differentiate between CPM and PERT.
Q24. What is Network analysis? What is its significance?
Q25. Explain -Slack and Float their types and their importance in network analysis.
PART-B

Q26. A candidate is appearing for the competitive test and finds the following
information on seeing the question paper:
(i) the total time is 3 hours
(ii) the paper has two sections- section A and section B
(iii) to answer at least 2 questions from section A and at least 3 questions
from section B
(iv) A question of first section carries 10 marks and that of the second section
carries 15 marks
(v) Time to answer a question of section A is 15 minutes and that of section
B is 25 minutes.
(vi) The maximum number of questions to be answered is 10.
Formulate a linear programming problem so as to find out how many
questions from each section the candidate should answer and what are the
maximum marks? (Do not solve the problem)
Q.27. Solve the following linear programming problem graphically:
Maximize Z=2X1+3X2
Subject to: X1+X230
X230
X212
X1-X20
X120
X1, X20
Q28.Solve the following linear programming problem using Simplex method:
Maximize: Z=500X1+600X2+1200X3
Subject to: 2X1+4X2+6X3160
3X1+2X2+4X3120
X1, X2, X30
Q29. Convert the following assignment problem into a Linear Programming
problem. Write the objective function and constraints. (Do not solve)
Tasks
Operators
I II III IV
A 8 26 17 11
B 13 28 4 26
C 38 19 18 15
D 19 26 24 10

Q30. A truck company on a particular day has 4 trucks for sending material to 6
terminals. The cost of sending material to destination by different trucks will be
different as given by the cost matrix below. Find the assignment of 4 truck
terminals out of 6 at a minimum cost.
Trucks
Terminals
A B C D
1 3 6 2 2
2 7 1 4 4
3 3 8 5 5
4 6 4 3 3
5 5 2 4 4
6 5 7 6 6

Q31. . Solve the following assignment problem:
Jobs
Men
I II III IV V
A 2 9 2 7 1
B 6 8 7 6 1
C 4 6 5 3 1
D 4 2 7 3 1
E 5 3 9 5 1

Q32 An organization producing 4 different products i.e. A, B, C and D having 4
operators i.e. P, Q, R and S who are capable of producing any of the four products,
works effectively for 7 hours a day. The time (in minutes) required for each
operator for producing each of the products are given below along with the profit
(Rs. per unit):
Product
Operator
A B C D
P 6 10 14 12
Q 7 5 3 4
R 6 7 10 10
S 20 10 15 15
Profit(Rs/unit) 3 2 4 1
Find out the assignment of operators to product which will maximize profit.
Q33 Find the Optimum solution of the following transportation problem:
D1 D2 D3 D4 Supply
S1 19 30 50 10 7
S2 70 30 40 60 9
S3 40 8 70 20 18
Demand 5 8 7 14

Q34. A company has three plants and four warehouses. The supply and the demand
in units and the corresponding transportation costs are given below. The table has
been taken from the solution procedure of the transportation problem:
(The allocations in the cell are shown in brackets)
Warehouse
Plant
I II III IV Supply
A 5 10 4 (10) 5 10
B 6 (20) 8 7 2 (5) 25
C 4 (5) 2 (10) 5 (5) 7 20
Demand 25 10 15 5
Answer the following questions:
(i) Is the solution feasible? (ii) Is the solution Optimum? (iii) If the cost for
the route B-III is reduced from Rs 7 to Rs 6 per unit, what will be the
optimum solution?
Q35. A company has three plants and four destinations. The supply and the
demand in units and the corresponding transportation costs are given below:
Destination
Plants
D1 D2 D3 D4 Supply
I 2 3 11 7 6
II 1 0 6 1 1
III 5 8 15 9 10
Demand 7 5 3 2

(a) Find the Initial feasible solution by-(i) North West Corner rule method (ii)
Least cost method and (iii) Vogels approximation method
(b) Find the optimum solution using Vogels approx.. method and MODI
method.
Q36. . Mr.X quite often flies from town A to town B. He can use the airport bus
which costs Rs.13 but if he takes it there is a 0.08 chance that he will miss the
flight. A hotel limousine costs Rs.27 with a 0.96 chance of being on time for the
flight. For Rs.50 he can use a taxi which will make 99 out of 100 flights. If Mr.X
catches the flight on time, he will conclude a business transaction which will
produce a profit of Rs.1000, otherwise he will lose it. Which mode of transport
should Mr. X use?
Q37. . XYZ company manufactures parts for passenger cars and sells them in lots
of 10,000 parts each. The company has a policy of inspecting each lot before it is
actually shipped to the retailer. Five inspection categories established for quality
control represent the percentage of defective items contained in each lot. The daily
inspection chart shows the following rating or breakdown inspection:

Rating Proportion of
defective Items
Frequency
Excellent (A) 0.02 25
Good (B) 0.05 30
Acceptable (C) 0.10 20
Fair(D) 0.15 20
Poor (E) 0.20 5
The management is considering the following course of action:
(i) Shut down the entire plant operations and thoroughly inspect each
machine.
(ii) Continue production as it now exists but offer the customer a refund for
defective items that are discovered and subsequently returned. The first
alternative will cost Rs 600 while the second alternative will cost the
company Rs1for each defective item that is returned. What is the
optimum decision for the company?
(iii) Find the EVPI

Q38.The following matrix gives the pay off of different strategies(alternatives) S1,
S2 and S3 against the events E1, E2, E3 and E4:
E1 E2 E3 E4
S1 Rs.4000 -100 6000 18000
S2 20,000 5000 400 0
S3 20,000 15,000 -2000 1000
Indicate the decision taken under the following approach: (i) Maximax criterion (ii)
Maximin criterion (iii) Minimax (Regret) criterion (iv) Laplace criterion
Q39. A certain piece of equipment has to be purchased for a construction project at
a remote location. The equipment contains an expensive part which is subject to
random failure. Spares of this part can be purchased at the same time the
equipment. Their unit cost is Rs.1, 500 and they have no scrap value. If the part
fails on the job and no spare is available, the part will have to be manufactured on
a special order basis. If this is required, the total cost including down time of the
equipment, is estimated as Rs.9, 000 for such occurrence. Based on previous
experience with similar parts, the following probability estimates of the number of
failures expected over the duration of the project is given below:
Failure: 0 1 2
Probability: 0.80 0.15 0.05
(i) Determine the optimal EMV and the optimal number of spares to
purchase initially.
(ii) Determine the EOL and the optimal course of action.
(iii) Determine the expected profit with perfect information and the expected
value of perfect information

Q40. Solve the following game:
Player B
PlayerA
I II III !V V
I -1 2 -1 10 50
II 1 -2 5 -2 -2
III -5 2 -5 10 50
IV 1 -10 5 -10 -10
V 1 -50 5 -50 -50

Q41. A company is currently involved in negotiations with its union on the
upcoming wage contract. Positive signs in the given table indicate wage increase
while negative sign represents wage reduction. What are the optimal strategies for
the company as well as the union?
Union
strategies
Company
strategies
U1 U2 U3 U4
C1 +2.50 +2.70 +3.50 -0.20
C2 +2.00 +1.60 +0.80 +0.80
C3 +1.40 +1.20 +1.50 +1.30
C4 +3.00 +1.40 +1.90 0

Q42.A self service store employs one cashier at its counter. Nine customers arrive
on an average every 5 minutes while the cashier can serve 10 customers in 5
minutes. Assuming Poisson distribution for arrival rate and exponential
distribution for service time, find the following: (i) Average no. of customers in the
system (ii) Average queue length (iii) Average time a customer spends in the
system (iv) Average time a customer waits before being served.
Q43. Arrival rate of telephone calls at a telephone booth are according to Poisson
distribution with an average time of 9 minutes between two consecutive arrivals.
The length of the telephone call is assumed to be exponentially distributed with
mean 3 minutes.
(i) Find the probability that a person arriving at the booth will have to wait.
(ii) The telephone company will install a second booth when convinced that
an arrival would expect to have to wait at least 4 minutes for the phone.
Find the increase in flow rate of arrivals which will justify a second
booth.
(iii) Find the fraction of a day that the phone will be in use.
Q44. A project has the following activities and other characteristics:


Activity Preceding
Activity
Most
Optimistic
time (weeks)
Most Likely
time (weeks)
Most
Pessimistic
time (weeks)
A Nil 4 7 16
B Nil 1 5 15
C A 6 12 30
D A 2 5 8
E C 5 11 17
F D 3 6 15
G B 3 9 27
H E,F 1 4 7
I G 4 19 28
(i) Draw the network diagram.
(ii) Identify the critical path
(iii) Find the expected duration and variance for each activity. What is the
expected project length?
(iv) What is the probability that the project is completed between 35 and 40
weeks?
Q45. Draw network from the following activity and find the critical path and
the total duration of the project:
Activity Immediate
Predecessors
Duration (Days)
A Nil 2
B Nil 4
C Nil 3
D A 1
E B 6
F C 5
G D,E 7
H F,G 2

Q46. A project has the following activities and other characteristics:
Activity Preceding
Activity
Most
Optimistic
time (weeks)
Most Likely
time (weeks)
Most
Pessimistic
time (weeks)
A Nil 1 1 7
B Nil 1 4 7
C Nil 2 2 8
D A 1 1 1
E B 2 5 14
F C 2 5 8
G D,E 3 6 15
H F,G 1 2 3
(i) Draw the network diagram.
(ii) Identify the critical path
(iii) Find the expected duration and variance for each activity. What is the
expected project length?
(iv) What duration will have 95% confidence for project completion?
(v) If the average duration for activity F increases to 14 days what will be its
effect on the expected project completion time which will have 95%
confidence?
Q47. A project has the following activities:
Activity Immediate
Predecessors
Duration
(Weeks)
A Nil 3
B Nil 2
C Nil 2
D A 4
E B 4
F B 7
G C 4
H D 2
I E 5
J F,G 6
K H,I 3
Calculate: (i) Critical path and total project duration (ii) Earliest event time and
latest event time (iii) Total and Free float for each activity.
Q48. Solve the following using Simplex Method:
Maximize Z=4X1+3X2+6X3
Subject to: 2X1+3X2+2X3440
4X1 +3X3470
2X1+5X2430
X1,X2,X30
Q49. A TV dealer finds that the cost of holding a TV in stock for a week is
Rs.50.Customers who cannot obtain new TVs immediately tend to go to other
dealers and he estimates that for every customer who cannot get immediate
delivery of TV he loses an average of Rs.200. For one particular model of TV the
probabilities of a demand of 0,1,2,3,4,and 5 TVs in a week are
0.05,0.10,0.20,0.30,0.20 and 0.15 respectively.
(i) How many TVs per week should the dealer order? Assume that there is
no time lag between ordering and delivery.
(ii) The dealer is thinking of spending on a small market survey to obtain
additional information regarding the demand levels. How much should he
be willing to spend on such a survey?

Q50. (a) Draw the following network diagram:

Activity Immediate
Predecessors
A ----
B A
C A
D A
E B
F C
G C
H D
I F
J H
K I
L E,K,G
M L,I

(b) Customers arrive at a one window drive-in bank according to Poisson
distribution with mean 10 per hour. Service time per customer is exponential
with mean 5 minutes. The space in front of the window, including that for the
serviced car can accommodate a maximum of three cars. Other cars can wait
outside the space.
(i) Find the probability that an arriving customer can drive directly to the space
in front of the window.
(ii) What is the probability that an arriving customer will have to wait outside
the indicated space?
(iii)How long an arriving customer expected to wait before starting service?