Q2) Answer

The Department of the Navy has been downsizing and is looking for cost savings
opportunities to meet mandated congressional budget cuts. One suggestion under
consideration is to change the makeup of the content of Navy sea rations, the
canned food supplies containing certain minimum daily requirement (MDR) of
Vitamin A, Vitamin D, iron, and other nutrients, which combat troops carry into
battle.
According to Texfoods, the current supplier of sea rations for the Navy, each two-
ounce portion of its product supplies 20% of the required amount of Vitamin A,
25% of the MDR of Vitamin D, and 50% of the required amount of iron. Each
portion costs the Navy $0.60. Because all minimum standards must be met in each
serving, the current sea ration container must contain 10 ounces of the Texfoods
product (to meet the MDR of Vitamin A). This costs the Navy $3.00 5 X $0.60)
per serving.
The Navy is considering switching to another product from a different supplier,
Cal ration. A two-ounce portion of Calration costs $0.50 and provides 50% of the
MDR of Vitamin A and 25% of the requirement of Vitamin D, but only 10% of the
MDR for iron. Substituting the Calration product, the sea ration container would
have to contain 20 ounces in order to meet the MDR for iron, costing the Navy
$5.00 (= 10 X 50.50) per serving.
One bright Navy lieutenant has suggested that a mixture of the two products might
meet the overall standards at a lower cost than the current $3 per serving. The
Navy has never worried about the taste of sea rations; hence, mixing them, either
by combining them or by packing a portion of each, is an acceptable alterna


Develop a linear programming model for the department. The objective
function that should minimize the total cost of the sea rations.

Illustrated Graphical solution for this problem

Solution:

DECISION VARIABLES

The following decision variables must be included in the problem:
Xl = number of 2-ounce portions of Texfoods product used in a
serving of sea rations
X2

= number of 2-ounce portions of Calration product used in a
serving of sea rations
OBJECTIVE FUNCTION

The objective is to minimize the total cost of a serving of sea rations. Since each 2ounce
serving of Texfoods costs $0.60 and each 2-ounce serving of Calration cost'> $0.50, the
objective function is:

Minimize .60X1 + .5X2
CONSTRINTS

Each 2-ounce portion of Texfoods product provides 20% of the MDR for Vitamin A; each
2-ounce portion of the Cal ration product provides 50%. If X1 2-ounce portions of Texfoods
and X2 2-ounce portions of Calration are included in the sea rations, this would give 20X1 +
50X2 percent of the MDR for Vitamin A. The constraint that at least 100% of the MDR of
Vitamin A must be met can then be written as
(The total percent of Vitamin A) (100%)
20X1 + 50X2 100

Similar constraints for Vitamin D and iron, respectively, are:
25X1 + 25X2 100
And
50X1 + 10X2 100
Together with the no negativity constraints, this gives us the following linear
programming model:
1- MINIMIZE .60X1 + .50X2
ST
20X1 + 50X2 100
25X1 + 25X2 100
25X1 + 25X2 100
50X1 + 10X2 100
X1, X2 0
2- This problem is illustrated in figure below Note that the feasible region is
unbounded. Since the objective function is to minimize the objective function,
however, the objective function line is moved downward the origin, and the
optimal point is (1.5,2.5)