As there is a lot of demand for Shouldices particular offering, Shouldice administrators are interested in expanding their capacity to allow more patients inside, but are worried about quality problems. They want to maintain the same experience for the patients, a typical procedure described in the below chart.

They are considering two main approaches: improve physical plant capacity (beds, surgery resources) or expand work schedule (they currently operate from Sunday to Friday with the Saturday off).

Our goal for this assignment is to consider these options for expansion using an LP model. Specifically:

1. Formulate a linear program model to maximize the number of patients to be admitted each week, i.e. find the optimal admissions schedule. Shouldice currently operates with a capacity of 33 surgeries (operating capacity) per day, 89 beds, and works 6 days a week (Sun-Fri). You may consider formulating a problem around setting a weekly admittance schedule and assume unlimited demand (Shouldice is popular but cant respond to the demand).
2. Identify different capacity options that are captured by your formulation based on bed capacity or work week. For example, what would be the effect of increasing operating capacity by 5, 10 or 15 surgeries per day? Or, how about increasing bed capacity to 100, or 150? How about expanding operations to Saturday? In addition to these options, you can explore different configurations on your own and make assumptions as you see fit.