Slides adopted from Prof.

Gesualdo Scutari (SP 2016)

Lesson 11: Linear Programming Models II

IE 335: Operations Research - Optimization

Instructor: Professor Chris Quinn

September 7, 2016

Today...

Theme: not obvious decision variables

Examples:
I

Scheduling postal workers

Inventory management

Scheduling postal workers

Each postal worker works for 5 consecutive days, followed by 2 days

off, repeated weekly
Demand for workers for each day of the week
di = demand for workers on day i
I

for i = 1, . . . , 7

Indices: Monday = 1, Tuesday = 2, ... , Sunday = 7

We want to minimize the number of total workers used

I

For now, lets assume that fractional workers are allowed

Scheduling postal workers

Step 1: How should we define the decision variables?
I

My answer: let
xi = number of workers who work on
days i, i + 1, i + 2, i + 3, i + 4 (mod 7)
for i = 1, . . . , 7

For example,
x1 = number of workers who start work on Monday
and work through Friday
x4 = number of workers who start work on Thursday
and work through Monday
x7 = number of workers who start work on Sunday
and work through Thursday
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Scheduling postal workers

Step 2: Write the objective function

I

We want to minimize the total number of workers

Total number of workers = Add up the number of workers who

work in each type of shift

Objective:
minimize

7
X

xi

i=1

Scheduling postal workers

Step 3: Write the constraints
I

Day i needs di workers

Who works on Monday (i = 1)?

Workers on the Monday-Friday shift (x1 )

Workers on the Thursday-Monday shift (x4 )

Workers on the Friday-Tuesday shift (x5 )

Workers on the Saturday-Wednesday shift (x6 )

Workers on the Sunday-Thursday shift (x7 )

Constraint for meeting demand for workers on Monday:

x1 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 d1

Scheduling postal workers

Similar constraints for each day of the week:

+ x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 d1

(Mon)

+ x5 + x6 + x7 d2

(Tue)

+ x6 + x7 d3

(Wed)

+ x7 d4

(Thu)

d5

(Fri)

d6

(Sat)

x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 d7

(Sun)

x1
x1 + x2
x1 + x2 + x3

x1 + x2 + x3 + x4
x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5
x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6

Scheduling postal workers

The model:
min x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7
s.t.

+ x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 d1

(Mon)

+ x5 + x6 + x7 d2

(Tue)

+ x6 + x7 d3

(Wed)

+ x7 d4

(Thu)

d5

(Fri)

d6

(Sat)

x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 d7

(Sun)

x1
x1 + x2
x1 + x2 + x3

x1 + x2 + x3 + x4
x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5
x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6

xi 0

for i = 1, . . . , 7

Scheduling postal workers

More natural decision variables:

yi = number of workers on day i

for i = 1, . . . , 7

Easy to formulate number of workers on day i is at least di

yi di

for i = 1, . . . , 7

How to formulate each worker works 5 consecutive days followed by

2 consecutive days off?

Things to keep in mind

Sometimes the decision variables incorporate constraints of the

problem
I

Art of optimization

Hard to do this well, but worth keeping in mind

Good integer programming models often require this

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Inventory management

Global Minimum manufactures ski jackets

Business is highly seasonal
Demand for quarter t is dt (t = 1, 2, 3, 4)
Cost of producing 1 jacket in quarter t is pt (t = 1, 2, 3, 4)
Company can produce up to C jackets per quarter
In order to properly warm up the production line, the total number of
jackets produced in quarters 2 and 3 must be at least twice the
number of jackets produced in quarter 1.

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Inventory management
Inventory must be built up to meet larger demands
Cost of holding 1 jacket from quarter t to quarter t + 1 is ht
(t = 1, 2, 3)
No initial inventory
Jackets in inventory at the end of quarter 4 are salvaged
Each jacket salvaged reduces total cost by s
Global wants to meet demand while minimizing production and
inventory costs
Assume volume is large, so we can ignore integrality

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Inventory management

Step 1: Define the decision variables

I

How much to produce in each quarter?

Define
xt = number of jackets produced in quarter t
for i = 1, 2, 3, 4

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Inventory management

Step 1: Define the decision variables

I

Also want to keep track of how much we have in inventory

Define
zt = number of jackets in inventory at the end of quarter t
for t = 1, 2, 3, 4

Wait... are these decisions that we make?

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Inventory management

The zt variables do not represent explicit decisions

Sometimes adding auxiliary decision variables helps with modeling
In this case, we can write a correct model without the zt variables,
but is much more cumbersome
Sometimes, you might need/want to go back and add decision
variables once you start building an optimization model

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Inventory management

Step 2: Write the objective function

I

We want to minimize production and inventory costs

Objective:
minimize

4
X
t=1

p t xt +

3
X

ht zt sz4

t=1

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Inventory management
Step 3: Write the constraints
I

How are inventory and production levels at different quarters

related?

Inventory at
Amount
the end of + produced
quarter t 1
in quarter t



Inventory at
Demand
=
+ the end of
in quarter t
quarter t

Sometimes referred to as balance constraints

Constraints:
x1 = d1 + z1

z1 + x2 = d2 + z2

z2 + x3 = d3 + z3

z3 + x4 = d4 + z4
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Inventory management
Step 3: Write the constraints
I

Company can produce up to C jackets per quarter

Constraints:
xt C

for t = 1, 2, 3, 4

Number of jackets produced in quarters 2 and 3 must be at least

twice the number of jackets produced in quarter 1

Constraints:
2x1 x2 + x3

Cannot produce a negative jacket

Constraints:
xt 0 for t = 1, 2, 3, 4
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Inventory management
The model:
minimize

4
X

p t xt +

t=1

subject to

3
X

ht zt sz4

t=1

x1 = d1 + z1
z1 + x2 = d2 + z2
z2 + x3 = d3 + z3
z3 + x4 = d4 + z4
xt C

for t = 1, 2, 3, 4

2x1 x2 + x3
xt 0

for t = 1, 2, 3, 4

zt 0

for t = 1, 2, 3, 4

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Recap

Two examples of linear models

Take-home message: choosing the proper optimization variables
may not be trivial

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