UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2021/2022
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF BUSINESS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BUSS 206: OPERATIONS RESAERCH
FULLTIME/ PART TIME DISTANCE LERNING
DATE: DECEMBER, 2021 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One and any other Two Questions
QUESTION ONE (20 MARKS)
a) Business A decides to set-up a toy factory to manufacture toy cars and lorries. From the
market research done, the following information is established:
• Each toy car sells at Ksh.45
• Each toy lorry sells at Ksh.80
• Each toy car requires 5 hours to be machined.
• Each toy lorry requires 12 hours to be machined.
• The machining equipment is only available for 400 hours
per production period
• Each toy car requires 10 hours to be passed through the
finishing process
• Each toy lorry requires 15 hours to be passed through the
finishing process
• The finishing team is only available for 450 hours per
production period
i) Formulate the linear programming problem. [4 Marks]
ii) Formulate a Standard Linear Programming Problem (SLPP).
[4 Marks]
iii) Write the DUAL of the problem above, [4 Marks]
b) Identify FOUR areas of application of operations research in business.
[4 Marks]
QUESTION TWO (15 MARKS)
a) A firm has 3 factories A, E and K. There are four major warehouses situated at B, C, D and
M. Average daily product at A, E, K is 30, 40 and 50 units respectively. The average daily
requirement of this product at B, C, D and M is 35, 28, 32,25 units respectively.
The transportation cost (in USD) per unit of product from each factory to each warehouse
is given below:
Determine a routing plan that minimizes total transportation costs. [15 Marks]
QUESTION THREE (15 MARKS)
a) Use the simplex method to solve following LP problem. (10 Marks)
M ax Z = 6×1 + 17×2 + 10×3
Subject to:
x1 + x2 + 4×3 ≤ 2000
2×1 + x2 + x3 ≤ 3600
x1 + 2×2 + 2×3 ≤ 2400
x1 ≤ 30 44
and x1, x2, x3 ≥ 0
b) Outline the methodology of operations research (5 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR (15 MARKS)
a) Explain the limitations of linear programing (5Marks)
b) A company has 4 machines on which to do 3 jobs. Each job can be assigned to one and
only one machine. Solve the assignment problem given that the cost of each job on each
machine is given in the following table: (10 Marks)
