A procurement manager is analyzing a set of bids that he has received for five projects from six bidders. The guidelines established for selecting the successful bidders require the manager to minimize the total cost to complete the projects, not award more than one contract to each bidder, and disregard the lowest bid whenever it is more than 25 percent below the next lowest bid (the assumption being that the quality of the work will not be up to standards). The bids on the projects (in thousands of Ksh.) are shown in the table below:
Contract Bidder A B C D E
1 7 8 8 12 7
2 9 13 10 14 5
3 3 7 6 13 11
4 17 17 7 8 8
5 8 12 7 15 16
6 10 10 10 16 8
Required:
Identify which particular bidder(s) shall not be eligible for which particular contract(s) in pursuance of the requirement in (c).
Identify the successful bidder for each of the five contracts.
Work out the optimal assignment pattern if the requirement (c) is waived.