C&O 370 Research Project Dial-A-Bartender

By: Charmaine Chan, Remanna Lau and Angel Man

ABSTRACT

  Bartenders are magicians of alcohol who create various types of wonderful drinks with a limited amount of alcohol and non-alcohol ingredients. Some professional bartenders specialize in premixing drinks to serve guests in private parties. Being in a competitive business, determining the profitable combinations of drink-types to be premixed is definitedly a critical factor for running a successful bartender business. Fortunately, a linear programming (LP) model can help bartenders make such decision. In this project, we investigate the "Dial-A-Bartender" problem and develop an LP model that helps bartenders determine the most profitable combination of drink-types to be premixed as a function of the costs of their ingredients, under specific customers requirements and the limited inventory constraints. Results of the sensitivity analysis on our LP model help bartenders improve their business by providing variations of drink-types for their customers to choose from.

In this project we assume a professional bartender who specializes in private parties offers 5 different drink-types. Being in a competitive business he provides his customers with a list of guaranteed prices for each type. Before actually going to a party, he premixes various quantities of each drink-type in bathces. Our problem is to develope a model for determining the most profitable combination of drink-types to be premixed as a function of the costs of their ingredients.



FINAL REPORT



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