Business analytics skills using optimisation methods must be demonstrated in this assignment. You will need to use linear programming to formulate and model a problem, and Excel solver will be used to conduct the analytics and obtain the solutions. For the assignment, you are required to form a group of 4-5 students. Each group needs to select a company from the list below and use the companys website to collect some background information and any type of preliminary information that could help in formulating the optimisation problem of the company. For example you may find some information about a given companys operations, their branches/wholesales, level of production, etc., that could help you with formulating the problem.

You will realise that there is no direct information about optimisation problems of the company of your choice, therefore you will need to use the companys background information along with business analytics knowledge to formulate the problem. For instance for a manufacturer the problem could be transportation of the products from manufacturing point to the customer or to the warehouse.

Based on the preliminary information that you collect, you need to make assumptions and build up a model for the company and solve the problem.

The assignment should be formulated based on any of Transshipment, or Assignment problems (you just need to do one out of these two options). Below is a list of companies/organisations and possible approaches to problem solving:

Transshipment problem

Woolworths

Coles

Aldi

7-11

Assignment problem

Virgin airlines

Metro-train

Alfred Hospital

Better health channel

This assignment will require you to use linear programming to develop objective function and constraints and solve the problem. Solving the problem will be in two stages:

• Manually solve the constraints and draw the relevant graph to demonstrate the feasible region.
• Using excel solver to find the solution and interpreting the output.

Assignment requirement:

Model Design

• • choose a company from the list or assume your own company
  • make assumptions about the problem before formulating the problem and modelling (assumptions such as the type of operation, amount of manufacturing and shipment, cost, etc.)
  • Formulate a Linear Programming problem (LP)
  • After formulating the problem define the following:
• Define decision variables
• Define objective functions
• Define constraints

Model implementation

• • Implement the model
• Draw the graph of constraints
• Show the feasible region
• Run the analysis using Excel solver
• Prepare Excel output of the model using excel solver
• Run sensitivity analysis using excel solver and interpret the results

Assignment structure:

• • Introduction to the company
  • Selection of the company
• assumptions about the problem before formulating the problem and modelling
  • Problem definition

• Identification and description of the problem to be analysed
  • Model design:

• Formulation of Linear Programming problem (LP)
• Defining decision variables
• Defining objective functions
• Defining constraints
  • Model implementation:

• Draw the graph of constraints
• Show the feasible region
• Run the analysis using Excel solver
• Prepare Excel output of the model using excel solver
• Run sensitivity analysis using excel solver and interpret the results
  • Recommendation and conclusion
  • Structure and presentation of the assignment

Appendix (should include both assignment word document and Excel solver file)