Uhura Enterprises provides consulting services for customers. Consultants are brought in for two-hour shifts. A consultant will spend one full hour with a customer. The customers remain for that hour and then leave. Each consultant is paid $25 per hour. Let X_i represent the number of consultants starting their shift at hour i, (i = 1,2,3,4) . The firm wishes to minimize salary costs while satisfying demand. Customer demand is as follows.
1:00-2:00 4
2:00-3:00 5
3:00-4:00 10
4:00-5:00 4
5:00-6:00 8
What is the proper objective function?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The objective is to minimize salary costs. Each consultant is paid $25 per hour, and they work two-hour shifts, so the cost per consultant per shift is $50. Therefore, the objective function should be to minimize the total cost, which is 50 times the number of consultants starting their shift at each hour.

Uhura Enterprises Provides Consulting Services for Customers