Assignment #4 Integer Programs

1.

(Segregated Storage Problem). A feed processor has various amounts of four

different commodities which must be stored in different silos. Each silo can
contain at most one commodity. Associated with each commodity and silo

Loading
Cost/Ton
Amount to
be stored
75
50
25
80

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
A
1
2
2
3
4
5
5
B
2
3
3
3
1
5
5
C
4
4
3
2
1
5
5
D
1
1
2
2
3
5
5
Capaciti 2
es
5
25
40
60
80 100 100
combination is a loading cost. Each silo has a finite capacity so some
commodities may have to split over several silos. The following table contains
the data for this problem:

a) Present a formulation for solving this class of problems.

b) Find the minimum cost solution for this particular example.
c) How would your formulation change if additionally there was a fixed cost
of $200 associated with each silo which is incurred if anything is stored in
the silo?
2. Managing the aircraft and crews of a large airline involves complex
scheduling problems. Paying special attention to those scheduling problems
can be rewarding. Wall Street Journal has indicated that better scheduling
allowed airlines to easily schedule an additional 100 flights with 15 less
aircraft while adding 800 million additional seat miles.
Large airlines face a staffing problem known as the crew scheduling problem.
The requirements to be covered are the crew requirements of the flights
which the line is committed to fly during the next scheduling period, e.g., one
month. A specific crew during its working day will typically fly a number of
flights, usually but not necessarily on the same aircraft. The problem is to
determine which flights should comprise the days work of a crew.

The approach taken by a number of airlines is similar to the approach

described for staffing problems: (1) Identify the demand requirements, i.e.,
the flights to be covered; (2) Generate a large number of feasible collections
of flights that one crew could cover in a day; (3) Select a minimum cost
subset of the collections generated in (2) so that the cost is minimized and
every flight is contained in exactly one of the selected collections.
A drastically simplified version of the crew scheduling problem is given in the
following.
The ABC Airline operates the following set of scheduled flights:

FLIGHTS NO.
101
410
220
17
7
13
11
19
23
3

ORIGIN
Chicago
New York
New York
Miami
LA
Chicago
Miami
Chicago
LA
Miami

Flights
DESTINATION
LA
Chicago
Miami
Chicago
Chicago
New York
New York
Miami
Miami
LA

TIME OF DAY
afternoon
afternoon
night
morning
afternoon
night
morning
night
night
afternoon

The Flight Operations Staff would like to set up a low cost crew assignment
schedule. The basic problem is to determine the next flight, if any, that a
crew operates after it completes one flight. A basic concept needed in
understanding this problem is that of a tour. The characteristics of a tour are
as follows:
A tour consists of from 1 to 3 connecting flights
A tour has a cost of $2000 if it terminates in its city of origin
A tour which requires deadheading, i.e., terminates in a city other
than the origin city, costs, $3000.
In airline parlance, a tour is frequently called a pairing or a rotation. The
following are examples of acceptable tours:
Tour
17, 101, 23
220, 17, 101

Cost
$2,000
$3,000

410, 13

$2,000

10 constraints and 37 variables

The first thing to do for this small problem is to enumerate all feasible tours.
We do not consider a collection of flights which involve an intermediate
layover a tour. There are 10 one-flight tours, 14 two flight tours. And 17 three
flight tours.
a) Identify all the 37 tours and their costs.
b) Formulate the problem to minimize total cost to cover all the flights once.
[Although the formulation would require the variables to be binary, you
may want to ignore that and see whether Solver would deliver an integer
solution first.]
c) What is the minimize total cost that can cover all the flights?