Edexcel D2 2011 June — Question 7

Exam BoardEdexcel
ModuleD2 (Decision Mathematics 2)
Year2011
SessionJune
TopicFixed Point Iteration

7. Patrick is to take orders for his company's products. He will visit four countries over the next four weeks.
He will visit just one country each week.
He will leave from his office in London and will only return there after visiting the four countries.
He will travel directly from one country to the next.
He wishes to determine a schedule of four countries to visit. Table 1 shows the countries he could visit in each week. \begin{table}[h]
WeekWeek 1Week 2Week 3Week 4
Possible countriesA or BC, D or EF or GH or I
\captionsetup{labelformat=empty} \caption{Table 1}
\end{table} Table 2 shows the value of the orders, in \(\pounds 100\) s, he expects to take in each country. \begin{table}[h]
CountryABCDEFGHI
Value of expected orders in \(\pounds 100\) s221742413929273638
\captionsetup{labelformat=empty} \caption{Table 2}
\end{table} Table 3 shows the cost, in \(\pounds 100\) s, of travelling between the various countries. \begin{table}[h]
Travel costs in £100sABCDEFGHI
London5354
A542
B443
C65
D63
E44
F67
G56
\captionsetup{labelformat=empty} \caption{Table 3}
\end{table} The expected income is the value of the expected orders minus the cost of travel. It is decided to use dynamic programming to find a schedule that maximises the total expected income for these four weeks.
  1. Complete the table in the answer book to determine the optimal expected income.
  2. State Patrick's two optimal schedules.