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Forums › Ask ACCA Tutor Forums › Ask the Tutor ACCA PM Exams › Linear programming solving simultaneous equations.
Dear Mr. Moffat,
I viewed your lecture on linear programming. I am now going through the ACCA revision kit and something has stumped me.
In my example there are three constraints and three constraint lines plotted on my graph.
1. silk powder (3x +2y = 5,000)
2. silk amino acids (1x + 0.5y = 1,600)
3. skilled labour time (4x + 5y = 9,600)
When I get to the part of “solving the simultaneous equations” how do I know which two lines to put together to solve?
In the answers, the book used the skilled labour time and silk powder lines to solve the simultaneous equation, but how do I know which two lines two put together to solve if there are three constraint lines plotted?
If I solve for example amino acids and silk powder together I end up with different x and y figures than if i put silk powder and labour time together?
I hope my question makes sense, I just am not sure if there are three constraint equations how do I know which two are the simultaneous equations to solve to get to x and y.
Thank you so much for any help you could give me
Lynnette
You have not watched my lectures properly, and you need to watch them again.
It does not matter how many constraints there are – you plot these on a graph and identify the feasible region.
You then draw the contribution line, and moving it away from the origins determines which corner of the feasible region is the optimum, and therefore which two lines to solve.
Thank you for explaining this point to me again. I have watched the lecture again, not sure how I missed it the first time!
You are welcome 🙂
