ME4030 Assignment 1 (Due on 18/1/2017)

Problem 1 - Linear programming

A car manufacturer sells 3 models A, B, and C at a profit margin of Rs. 10,000, Rs.15,000, and Rs.20,000
respectively. The three models give a mileage of 8, 10 and 11 kmpl respectively, and the company
targets that on an average the cars they produce, give a mileage of at least 9kmpl. The time taken to
assemble each unit of A, B, and C is 1 minute, 2 minutes and 3 minutes in that order. What is the
maximum profit that the company can make in 8 hours? (10 marks)

1. Formulate the above problem into a linear programming problem. Clearly state the decision
variables, inequalities and objective function.

2. Use the Excel spreadsheet, MATLAB or any other solver to solve the formulated problem.

Problem 2 Queueing theory

Customers X, Y and Z enter a single-server queue almost simultaneously. Their service times are
respectively 12 minutes, 8 minutes and 6 minutes. Which service sequence minimizes the sum of the times
that they wait? What is this minimum value? (5 marks)

Problem 3 Queueing Theory

To earn spending money, a graduate student Raman moonlights* in the food court at the student union
during the evenings. He is the only person who works at the food counter while he is there. He notes that
customers arrive at the rate of 10 per hour, and that it takes him 4 minutes to serve one customer, on
average. He decides to analyze the system to calculate the available free time while in this job. Assuming
Poisson arrival and service times, please answer (15 marks)

i. What fraction of the time is Raman serving customers?

ii. What is the average queue length?
iii. What is the average time that a customer is in the system?
iv. What fraction of the time is at least one person waiting for service to commence?
v. What is the probability that a customer waits at least 4 minutes in the queue before
being served?
vi. Ramans other job is grading calculus assignments. If it takes him 5 minutes to grade
one assignment, and he uses the idle time at the food court grading, how many papers
can he grade while working at the food court? The food court opens from 6 P.M. 9
P.M.

*Note: Moonlight (meaning): Have a second job, typically secretly and at night, in addition to ones regular
job (Source: www.oxforddictionaries.com)
Guidelines for assignment submission

1. Submissions can be hand-written or printouts. Separately, please send an e-mail with a soft copy
of your program/excel sheet
2. Filename: Your-rollnumber.xls(x) and e-mail subject as ME4030 Assignment 1
3. Please answer the questions to the point.
4. Note that late submissions will be penalized at the rate of 1 mark per day of delay.
5. You can discuss amongst yourselves about how to solve the problems. However, the report and
files you submit should be done on your own. Any copying will be severely penalized. Do
mention the names of students you discussed with on top of your report.