Linear Programming Assignment Brief

Assessment Task

1. Case study (individual assignment).
For Assignment you are required to work on a linear programming case study. You must submit: A Word file to explain your mathematical models, to report your answers, and to write recommendations for decision makers based on the solutions, and An Excel file to demonstrate how you use Solver to identify the solutions. You must ensure that the file is in a workable condition before the submission.

2. Business solution (group assignment, 5 students/group), 3200–3500 words.
The purpose of this assignment is to develop your capability in applying your skills and knowledge in a real situation. In the first tutorial session, you will be asked to form a group of 5 students. For this assignment, you are required to apply quantitative techniques discussed in this course in a real company. You can choose any of the discussed areas in this course. Here are some suggested topics

• Linear programming
• Sensitivity analysis
• Network models
• Integer programming
• Project management
• Waiting line models
• Simulation
• Decision theory
• Any other related topic discussed in this course

You can work on any topics discussed in the course but you need to address the following areas when writing your report:

                                                                           

                                                                                                              

• As a group you are required to apply your knowledge on optimization in real and practical environment. For doing so you need to find a real company and then decide what optimization technique you are going to apply in the company based on their issues. Having an initial discussion with the company will help you choose the appropriate technique. Provide background information regarding the company including size, business type, areas of operations, competitors etc.
• You are required to provide discussion about the chosen topic. For example, if you choose ‘LP’ model in an manufacturing company you need to first explain about LP modeling and then justify why you choose LP for the company and why not the other technique, what are the advantage of LP compared to other methods.
• Then you are required to collect real data for the chosen topic and show the current status of the company in the chosen topic. For example, if your topic is Transportation, you need to discuss about nodes, cost of transportation per unit, function for total transportation cost, all the constrains, complete mathematical model, input and output data for Excel, optimal answer etc.
• After analyzing the current situation, you need to provide solution to improve the performance and efficiencies of the operations in the company (e.g. how to reduce the total transportation cost). Analyze the data explaining the process and where is the data coming from and what does it represent. A clear step-by-step instruction that can be understood by an individual with no previous Excel experience