The question is:
Maintenance at a major theme park in central Florida is an ongoing process that occurs 24 hours a day.
Because it is a long drive from most residential areas to the park, employees do not like to work shifts of fewer than 8 hours. These eight-hour shifts start every 4 hours throughout the day.
The number of maintenance workers needed at different times throughout the day varies. The following table summarizes the minimum number of employees needed in each 4-hour time period.
Time Period Minimum Employees Needed
12 a.m. to 4 a.m. 90
4 a.m. to 8 a.m. 215
8 a.m. to 12 p.m. 250
12 p.m. to 4 p.m. 165
4 p.m. to 8 p.m. 300
8 p.m. to 12 a.m. 125
The maintenance supervisor wants to determine the minimum number of employees to schedule that meets the minimum staffing requirements.
a. Formulate an LP model for this problem.
b. Create a spreadsheet model for this problem and solve it using Solver. Report the optimal solution (i.e. values for all the decision variables) and the value of the objective function in your report. In addition, save your work in Excel and upload the file along with your report.
c. In order to balance the workforce utilization across the day, we are seeking an alternative solution that minimizes the maximum excess (slack) in the number of workers on any given day while still retaining the same workforce size. Update the spreadsheet model for this problem and resolve it to find the new optimal solution.
Report the new solution and upload the new Excel model. (No need to provide the updated mathematical model).