Reference no: EM133299635

Question 1

Port Internships

The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is planning out their internships for the next calendar year. They would like to have 3 student interns working from Jan-Apr, 5 students working from May-Aug, and 4 students working from Sep-Dec. They can hire students for 4-month internships (Jan-Apr, May-Aug, Sep-Dec) and they can also hire students for 8-month internships (Jan-Aug, May-Dec). In total, they would like to hire at least 8 student interns.

The salary for a 4-month internship is $14,000 and for an 8-month internship is $28,000. There are also additional hiring costs associated with each type of internship which differ based on time of year (recruitment, interviewing, checking references, setting up payroll, etc.) 

Complete the LP model for this scheduling problem, solve it, create the sensitivity report, and then answer these and the following several questions.

a. How many variables are there?

b. How many internships will there be in total?

Question 2

At the optimal solution, what is the total cost of these internships (including salaries and hiring costs).

Question 3

Recruiting for Jan-Apr internships is becoming really really difficult! Suppose the full cost (salary + hiring costs) for a 4-month Jan-Apr internship increases by a whopping $176,000.

With this change, how many students should the Port Authority hire for 4-month Jan-Apr internships?

Question 4

OK, forget about the above change to the cost of Jan-Apr internships. Suppose instead that the full cost of a May-Aug internship decreases by $1,044.

What is the new total cost of this model?

Question 5

Again forget the above change. Now suppose instead that 3 more students are needed from May-Aug.

What is the new total cost of this model?

Question 6

Suppose you wished to determine what would happen if 2 more students were required from Jan-Apr and 1 more student was required from Sep-Dec.

Why could we not use the sensitivity report to figure out what would happen to the total cost if just the above changes were made to the model?

a. Group of answer choices

b. The right-hand-side of the Sep-Dec constraint cannot be changed.

c. An increase of 2 is beyond the allowable change for Jan-Apr.

d. The sensitivity report does not apply for more than one change at a time.

e. The change to the objective coefficient is outside the allowable range.

f. Changing the Jan-Apr constrain would affect the Total intenships constraint, which is not allowed.