THE COPPERBELT UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Test 2 [2nd December, 2022]
Evening Students

BS/BF/IP 341: OPERATIONS RESEARCH

𝟏
DURATION: 𝟐 HOURS
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TOTAL MARKS: 100

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES:

i. There are FOUR (4) questions in this paper. Answer any THREE
ii. Show all your workings and present your work with clarity and neatness.

iii. Begin each question on a new page.

iv. There shall be no ANY form of communication between students during the
examination. Any students caught doing this will be disqualified.

DO NOT TURN THIS PAGE UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO.

Page 1 of 8
QUESTION ONE

a) Zambian Airways can buy its jet fuel from any one of four vendors. The airline’s needs
for the upcoming month at each of the airports it serves are 1250litres at Ndola airport,
1000litres at Livingstone airport, 1500litres at Lusaka international airport and 1250litres
at Mfuwe Airport. Each vendor can supply fuel to each airport at a price (K’000) given
below by the following schedule:

Ndola Livingstone Lusaka Mfuwe

Each vendor, however, is limited in the total number of litres it can provide during any
one month. The capacities are 750litres for vendor one; 1750litres for vendor two;
1000litres for vendor three and 1500litres for vendor four.

Required:

Using appropriate methods determine a purchasing policy that will optimize supply
the airline’s requirements at each airport at an optimal total cost. [15 Marks]

b) An evaluation team at the Ministry of Health recently conducted an evaluation of

A 30 44 38 47 31

B 25 32 45 44 25

C 23 40 37 39 29

D 26 38 37 45 28

E 26 34 44 43 28

How should contracts be assigned to potential suppliers to minimize costs? What will
be the total cost? [10 Marks]
Total [25 Marks]

Page 2 of 8
QUESTION TWO

Panarottis Pizza has opened a branch in Kitwe’s Mukuba mall and plans a free delivery
policy to its customers within Kitwe town. This strategy is aimed at improving sales over
the coming months. Assuming a delivery man (on a motorcycle) begins his journey at A
and he is heading to L which is the destination point. Distances through other points (in
Km) are all shown on the network below.

G 32
12
8 I
B 5 23
20
10 E
5 2 10
L
1 K
7
C 14 6
25 F
A
4
J
35 1

D 6
17 3

a) Using the Dijkstra algorithm method or mapping method, find the shortest route a
deliveryman can take from source A to destination L to minimize the total distance
travelled. [11 Marks]
b) Suppose a motorcycle uses 50litres of fuel per 200km. How many litres of fuel will be
required for this trip? Given that, fuel cost K25.89 per litre. How much should the
company budget for fuel? [5 Marks]
c) Assuming Panarottis Pizza has customers in all the other locations (A,B,
C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L) on the network. Determine how the routes should be designed to
reach out to all customers with the objective of minimizing the total distance travelled.
What will be the total distance? [9 Marks]
Total [25 Marks]

Page 3 of 8
QUESTION THREE

a) ABSA bank Africa (former Barclays bank) is planning to install a new computerized
accounts system. The Bank management has determined the activities required
completing the project, the precedence relationships of the activities, and activity time
estimates as shown in the following table:
Activity Description Preceding Optimistic Most Pessimistic
activity (weeks) likely (weeks)
(weeks)
A Position recruiting - 5 8 17
B System development - 3 12 15
C System training A 4 7 10
D Equipment training A 5 8 23
E Manual system test B,C 1 1 1
F Preliminary system changeover B,C 1 4 13
G Computer–personnel interface D,E 3 6 9
H Equipment modification D,E 1 2.5 7
I Equipment testing H 1 1 1
J System debugging and installation F,G 2 2 2
Equipment changeover
K G,I 5 8 11

Required:
Construct an activity-on-arrow network and determine the critical path, standard
deviation and the probability that the project will be completed in 40 weeks. [15 Marks]

b) The political gassing mill company was inspected and found to be in violation of a
number of safety regulations. The inspectors ordered the mill to alter some existing
machinery to make it safer (e.g., add safety guards); purchase some new machinery to
replace older dangerous machinery; and relocate some machinery to make safer
passages and unobstructed entrances and exits. The inspectors gave the mill only 35
weeks to make the changes; if the changes were not made by then, the mill would be
fined $300,000. The mill determined the activities in a CPM network that would have to
be completed as shown in the following table.

Page 4 of 8
 Activity
Activity
Activity duration
predecessor
(weeks)
A - 2
B - 5
C - 3
D A 10
E A 7
F B 15
G C 9
H D,E 3
I D,E,F 4
J D,E,F,G 5
K H,I,J 2
Required: Construct an activity-on-node network for this project and determine the
critical path. Will they be fined $300,000? [10 Marks]
Total [25 Marks]
QUESTION FOUR

a) A well-known bank has opened a branch in Dundumwezi where it will have three (3)
counters to deal with all kind of customers. Customers are found to arrive in a Poisson
manner at a rate of 5 per hour for deposits, withdraws, account opening, etc. The service
time is found to have exponential distribution with mean 24 minutes. Customers are
served on a first come, first served basis. Calculate:
i. The average number of customers in the system [3 Marks]
ii. The average time a customer spends in the system [2 Marks]
iii. The average queue length [3 Marks]
iv. The average waiting time for customers [2 Marks]
v. The average time a customer spends on the counter [3 Marks]

Page 5 of 8
b) A company manufactures 30 items per day. The sale of these items depends upon
demand, which has the following distribution:
Sales (units) Probability
27 0.10
28 0.15
29 0.15
30 0.25
31 0.15
32 0.20
The production cost and the sale price of each unit are K40 and K50 respectively. Any
unsold product is to be disposed of at a loss of K15 per unit. There is a penalty of K5 per
unit if the demand is not met.
i. Using the following, random numbers estimate total profit/loss for the company
for the next 10 days: 80, 99, 65, 94, 95, 31, 79, 11, 76, 20. [6 Marks]
ii. If the company decides to produce 29 items per day, what is the advantage or
disadvantage to the company? [6 Marks]
Total [25 Marks]
Formula’s sheet

1
𝑃𝑜 = λ 𝑛
λ
( ) ( )𝑐 𝑐𝜇
𝜇 𝜇
∑𝑐−1
𝑛=0 𝑛! + ×
𝐶! 𝑐𝜇− λ

λ 𝑐
λμ(𝜇) λ
𝐿𝑠 = 2 × 𝑃𝑜 + 𝜇
(𝐶−1)!(𝑐𝜇−λ)

λ 𝑐
λμ(𝜇)
𝐿𝑞 = 2 × 𝑃𝑜
(𝐶−1)!(𝑐𝜇−λ)

Page 6 of 8
 𝐿𝑠
𝑊𝑠 =
λ
𝐿𝑞
𝑊𝑞 =
λ
λ
𝜌=
𝑐𝜇

Page 7 of 8
End of the Examination Paper!
Page 8 of 8