The case study is based on a Banana Republic Outlet Store located in Cypress, Texas. Banana Republic is part of a leading international specialty retailer with six brands – Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime, Athleta and INTERMIX – almost 3,700 stores and more than 150,000 employees. Gap Inc. founded by Doris and Don Fisher opened the first Gap store in 1969. The reason was simple. Don couldn't find a pair of jeans that fit. According to the Gap Inc. official website, "while many things have changed since 1969, the principles on which we were founded have stayed the same: creativity, delivering results, doing what's right and always thinking of our customers first.".
The case analyzes and examines the optimal sales of three top selling types of pants; Aiden Slim Fit Khaki pants (men), Emerson Chino pants (men) and Sloan Fit Ankle Pants (women) Ankle pants (women). Linear programming is an effective quantifiable tool used to assist operation managers with scheduling processes, making complex decisions and allocating limited resources for their business (Stevenson, 2014). The goal of this study is to formulate a linear programming model that will identify optimization of the objective within resource requirements and other constraints. .
Problem Statement.
To formulate a LP model to determine how many Aiden Slim Fit Khaki pants (men), Emerson Chino pants (men) and Sloan Fit Ankle pants (women) the store should sell in order to maximize its profits.
Procedure.
Linear programming (LP) is a mathematical method used to determine the best outcome of a linear objective function. The following Linear Programming Model was developed to determine how many Khaki, Chino and Ankle pants, should the store sell to maximize profit and minimize cost. Our group selected a Banana Republic store, which is located in an outlet mall in the outskirts of Houston. We selected the above-mentioned products, as they are the highest selling commodities in the store.
