Larry Edison is the director of the Computer Center for Buckly College. He now needs to schedule the staffing of the center. It is open from 8am until midnight. Larry has monitored the usage of the center at various times of the day and determined that the following number of computer consultants (qualified graduate students) are required.

Time of day	Minimum number of consultants required
8am - noon	6
noon - 4pm	8
4pm - 8pm	12
8pm - midnight	6

Two types of computer consultants can be hired: full-time and part-time. The full-time consultants work for eight consecutive hours in any of the following shifts: morning (8 am4 pm), afternoon (noon8 pm), and evening (4 pmmidnight). Full-time consultants are paid $17.50 per hour.

Part-time consultants can be hired to work any of the four shifts listed in the table. Part-time consultants are paid $15 per hour.

An additional requirement is that during every time period, there must be at least two full-time consultants on duty for every part-time consultant on duty.

QUESTION 1: Which category of linear programming problem does this problem fit?

Answer Choices: cost-benefit-tradeoff problem, assignment problem, transportation problem resource allocation problem

QUESTION 2: What are the decisions that need to be made?

Answer Choices: "Number of consultants in each shift.", "Minimum number of consultants required at each time of the day", "Hourly rate.", Number of shifts.

QUESTION 3: What should the objective be?

Answer Choices: "Minimize total employee cost.", "Maximize service rating.", "Minimize customer waiting time.", Maximize total profit.

QUESTION 4: What is the total number of shifts, considering both full-time and part-time?

Answer Choices: "7", "4", "8", "3", 2

QUESTION 5: Suppose that Larry were to hire three full-time consultants for the morning shift, two for the afternoon shift, and four for the evening shift, as well as three part-time workers for each of the four shifts. Calculate how many consultants would be working at each time of the day and what the total cost would be for the entire day.

Time of day	Number of consultants working
8am - noon	?
noon - 4pm	?
4pm - 8pm	?
8pm - midnight	?

Total cost: ?

QUESTION 6: Make a rough sketch of a spreadsheet model, with blocks laid out for the data cells, changing cells, output cells, and objective cell. Build a spreadsheet model and then solve it.

Optimal number of consultants in each shift:

Full time 8am-4pm	?
Full time noon-8pm	?
Full time 4pm-12am	?
Part time 8am-noon	?
Part time noon-4pm	?
Part time 4pm-8pm	?
Part time 8pm-12am	?

Optimal objective function value: ?