National Institute of Technology, Rourkela

BTech/Dual 7th Sem, Mech Engg (End Sem, Autumn), Nov 2015 Exam
ME-431 : Decision Modelling
Full Marks : 100 Duration : 3 Hours
This question paper consists of 3 pages.
Answer any FIVE questions. Figures at the right hand margin indicate marks. Normal
distribution table is to be provided.

Q.1 a) Solve the following LPP by Big-M method of simplex procedure. #15
Maximize z = x1 + 2x2
Subject to: x1 + 2x2 10
x1 + x2 1
x2 4
and x1, x2 0.

b) Refer Q.1(a). On the basis of sensitivity analysis, find out the new optimal #5
solution if the first constraint is changed to x1 + 2x2 15.

Q.2 a) Consider the following data on forecast and actual demand for last five years. #10
Year, t 1 2 3 4 5
Forecast, Ft 22 26 24 30 28
Demand, Dt 20 27 25 28 25
th
i) What would be the forecast for 6 year on the basis of three years
moving average?
ii) What would be the forecast for 10th year on the basis of single
exponential smoothing method if smoothing constant is 0.3?
iii) Calculate tracking signal.

b) Check if the following transportation problem is balanced. Find its initial #10
solution using north-west corner rule. Check if this solution is i) feasible, ii)
basic, iii) degenerate, and iv) optimal.
To
D E F Supply
Cost Cij
A 6 8 4 14
B 4 9 8 12
From

C 1 2 6 5
Demand 6 10 15

Q.3 a) The estimated profit from three brands of an item are listed below. #5
Brands Estimated levels of sale (units)
30000 20000 10000
A 20 10 5
B 30 15 4
C 40 20 2
Which brand should be opted if the decision maker is 60% optimistic?

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 b) Solve Q.3(a) on the basis of expected opportunity loss criterion. Assume that #5
the probability of estimated levels of demand for 30000, 20000 and 10000
are 0.4, 0.5 and 0.1 respectively.

c) Two companies are competing for selling the same product. The gains of 1st #10
company over the 2nd one are given below.
Company 2
1 7 2
Company 1 6 2 7
5 1 6
Find out optimal strategies of both players. Which player is expected to be
winner and on an average how much he will win?

Q.4 a) Vehicles arrive at a servicing centre in Poisson fashion at a mean rate of 2 per #10
hour. At a time only one vehicle can be serviced. The servicing time is
exponentially distributed with a mean of 20 min. It has a waiting space to
accommodate a maximum of 4 vehicles at any time. When the parking space
is full, if any new car comes it has to go back without taking the service as
no vehicle is allowed to wait along the road side. Find out the following:

(i) probability that the service centre is idle,

(ii) probability that a car has to go back without taking service,
(iii) average number of vehicles waiting in the parking space, and
(iv) average time a vehicle spends in the garage before leaving.

b) A sample of 100 computers gives the following frequency distribution of the #10
inter-arrival and service times for final packing before dispatch.

Inter-arrival Frequency Service time Frequency

time in min
1 5
2 20
3 40
4 20
5 15
in min
1 10
2 15
3 25
4 30
5 20

Simulate the process for the first 5 arrivals and 5 services using the random
numbers serially from the table given below and find out idle times for the
packing shop and waiting times for copmuter. Start simulation clock from the
1st arrival.

Serial No. 1 2 3 4 5
Random Arrival 64 47 48 20 10
Number for Service 39 11 98 53 40

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Q.5 a) A project consists of activities of which details are tabulated below. #15
Activity Time estimates, in days
optimistic most likely pessimistic
1-2 1 4 7
1-3 5 11 17
2-4 4 7 28
2-3 1 2.5 7
3-4 1 4 7
a. Identify the critical path.
b. On an average how many days are required to complete the
project.
c. With what confidence level, it can be estimated that it will be
completed between 10 and 20 days?
d. What is the probability of completing the path 1-2-4 within 18
days?
b) Differentiate between free float and independent float. #5

Q.6 a) What is the sequence of processing the following 4 jobs so that all jobs are #5
completed in minimum time if all jobs have to undergo the processing in the
order M1-M2-M3. It is not necessary to find out time of completion or idle
time.
Job 1 2 3 4
M1 15 12 10 16
M2 7 6 4 5
M3 22 24 12 14

b) The processing times for 3 different jobs on a workstation and the #5

corresponding due dates of delivery to customers are given below. All jobs
are available for processing from the beginning.

Job 1 2 3
Processing Time days 30 15 20
Due Date, days 40 20 30
Give a job schedule that minimizes the average flow time and find out
maximum tardiness.

c) Within how many days will all the jobs be completed if the scheduling is #10
based on the least slack first policy and all the jobs are ready for loading from
the beginning? In case of tie, break it as per shortest processing time rule.

Job Job routing and processing times Due date, day

1 B(3), C(4) 12
2 A(5), B(2), C(3) 14
3 B(3), A(4) 10
4 C(3), A(5), B(4) 16

******* The End ******

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