Question

Jamison Day Consultants has been entrusted with the task of evaluating a business plan that has been divided into four sections—​marketing, ​finance, operations, and human resources.​ Chris, Steve,​ Juana, and Rebecca form the evaluation team. Each of them has expertise in a certain field and tends to finish that section faster. The estimated times taken by each team member for each section have been outlined in the table below. Further information states that each of these individuals is paid $90​/hour.                                                                       

Times Taken by Team Members for Different Sections​ (minutes)
	Section
Member	Marketing	Finance		Operations		HR
Chris	60	45		150		120
Steve	90	105		115		110
Juana	30	135		75		130
Rebecca	55	70		80		80

​a) The optimal assignment of the function to a team member that minimizes the cost​ is:

Finance -----> Member ___________

Marketing ----> Member __________

Operations ------> Member __________

HR -----> Member ________

Answer 1

The problem is formulated in excel as below. The below 2 images show the formulation as well as the formulas used. The objective function to minimize is highlighted in green and the decision variables are highlighted in yellow.

Post these the solver parameters need to be entered as per the below image.

Once this is done, click on solve. The solver will solve the problem and show the message stating the same. Click on ok. The excel will now have the final solution as per below image.

Hence the optimal assignment is as follows

Chris --> Finance

Steve --> HR

Juana --> Marketing

Rebecca --> Operations

The minimum cost is $397.5