Exhibit 7.4 The Following Questions Are Based on the Problem Below

Essay

Exhibit 7.4
The following questions are based on the problem below.
Robert Gardner runs a small, local-only delivery service. His fleet consists of three smaller panel trucks. He recently accepted a contract to deliver 12 shipping boxes of goods for delivery to 12 different customers. The box weights are: 210, 160, 320, 90, 110, 70, 410, 260, 170, 240, 80 and 180 for boxes 1 through 12, respectively. Since each truck differs each truck has different load capacities as given below: Robert would like each truck equally loaded, both in terms of number of boxes and in terms of total weight, while minimizing his shipping costs. Assume a cost of $50 per item for trucks carrying extra boxes and $0.10 per pound cost for trucks carrying less weight.
The following integer goal programming formulation applies to his problem.
Y₁ = weight loaded in truck 1; Y₂ = weight loaded in truck 2; Y₃ = weight loaded in truck 3;
X_i,j = 0 if truck i not loaded with box j; 1 if truck i loaded with box j. Given the following spreadsheet solution of this integer goal programming formulation, answer the following questions.
-Refer to Exhibit 7.4. The solution indicates Truck 3 is under the target weight by 67 pounds. What if anything can be done to this model to provide a solution in which Truck 3 is closer to the target weight?