The manager of the Ewing and Barnes Department Store has four employees available to assign to three departments in the store—lamps, sporting goods, and linens. The manager wants each of these departments to have at least one employee, but not more than two. Therefore, two departments will be assigned one employee, and one department will be assigned two. Each employee has different areas of expertise, which are reflected in the daily sales each employee is expected to generate in each department, as follows:

Department Sales Employee Lamps Sporting Goods Linens 1 $130 $150 $ 90 2 275 300 100 3 180 225 140 4 200 120 160 The manager wishes to know which employee(s) to assign to each department in order to maximize expected sales.

a. Formulate a linear programming model for this problem.

b. Solve the model by using the computer.

c. Suppose that the department manager plans to assign only one employee to each department and to lay off the least productive employee. Formulate a new linear programming model that reflects this new condition and solve by using the computer. LO.1