Market Research Firm
A market research firm has been retained to conduct focus group interviews for a real estate company. Plans are made to classify participants to age: over 45 or 45 and under and as to whether or not they have recently bought and/or sold a house (within the last two years). Specific guidelines have been developed:
· At least 100 people must be selected
· At least 75% of the participants must have bought or sold a house recently
· Of those who have not bought or sold recently, at least 40% must be over 45 years of age
· No more than 40% of participants should be 45 or under
There are preliminary screenings with associated costs. The cost for each participant begins at $10. Additional contact with those over 45 raises the cost by $12. Additional time with the recent buyers and sellers adds $7 to the cost of including those participants. Formulate a linear programming model to determine the amount of and type of participants that minimizes total cost (use lindo)