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Worked Examples · Example 1

Q.A furniture company manufactures tables and chairs. Each table needs 2 hours of carpentry and 1 hour of finishing; each chair needs 1 hour of carpentry and 3 hours of finishing. The factory has at most 100 hours of carpentry and 120 hours of finishing available per week. The profit is ₹40 per table and ₹30 per chair. Formulate this as a linear programming problem to maximise weekly profit.

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✓ Free question

Step 1 — Decision variables. Let xx = number of tables made per week, yy = number of chairs made per week.

Step 2 — Objective function. Each table earns ₹40 profit and each chair ₹30, so total weekly profit is Z=40x+30yZ=40x+30y, to be maximised.

Step 3 — Constraints. Carpentry: each table needs 2 hours, each chair 1 hour, at most 100 hours available: 2x+y≤1002x+y\le100. Finishing: each table needs 1 hour, each chair 3 hours, at most 120 hours available: x+3y≤120x+3y\le120.

Step 4 — Non-negativity. A negative number of tables or chairs is meaningless: x≥0,y≥0x\ge0, y\ge0.

Putting it together:

Maximise Z=40x+30ysubject to2x+y≤100, x+3y≤120, x≥0, y≥0\text{Maximise } Z=40x+30y \quad\text{subject to}\quad 2x+y\le100,\ x+3y\le120,\ x\ge0,\ y\ge0

Independent check. Re-reading each constraint against the word problem once more: the carpentry constraint's coefficients (22 for tables, 11 for chairs) match 'each table needs 2 hours of carpentry; each chair needs 1 hour' exactly, and the finishing constraint's coefficients (11 for tables, 33 for chairs) match 'each table needs 1 hour of finishing; each chair needs 3 hours' exactly — confirming no coefficient was swapped between the two resources.

✓Final answer

Maximise Z=40x+30yZ=40x+30y subject to 2x+y≤1002x+y\le100, x+3y≤120x+3y\le120, x≥0x\ge0, y≥0y\ge0.

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