Alabama Little League (Major Division – ages 9 to 12) has now required its teams

Question

Alabama Little League (Major Division – ages 9 to 12) has now required its teams to use corked bats instead of aluminum bats. It is thought that aluminum bats give an unfair advantage to older players and while high school and colleges also use aluminum bats, many players who transition to the minor leagues finds the transition difficult. Corked bats “bat” differently and as such, some players never find their “batting groove” so to speak (even though corked bats are illegal in MLB). There are even a few studies that indicate that the vibration from the aluminum bat might cause nerve and skeletal damage to a player’s wrist, arm, and shoulder. So starting this season, corked bats are required. This creates a potential problem, as corked bats are produced at only two production facilities, one near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the other outside of Louisville, Kentucky. The cork is imported from Southeast Asia and Nigeria in Africa to a central location in Pittsburg, Kansas. Then, the Kansas location ships the materials via rail or truck to the respective plant locations based on the order. The rest of the production inputs are U.S.-based. Due to the near-immediate need for the bats (they also have to be distributed to 200+ teams in the state), decisions needs to be made about which plant the finished corked bats should be shipped from. Also, should they be shipped directly to each team or to a central point in Alabama and then transshipped from there to the 200+ locations in state? Describe what the production and cost functions might look like. How do shipping modalities and alternatives raise or lower the costs? How might managerial costs, average costs, and other costs fit into all of this? What did you decide and why?

Explanation / Answer

After I read the above-detailed statement, corked bats are very essential to use for each and every team in the central point of Alabama. So, if the quantity is high then obviously we need to produce the corked bats and supply to all the teams. However, we don't have enough bats for all the teams.

So, we need to start the production. what the requirement we have initially, that is the raw material of cork. The cork raw material is available in Southeast Asia & Nigeria. We need to spend the amount here and import the raw material from Southeast Asia & Nigeria to Pittsburg, Kansas. Luckily, we have a production house in Pittsburg. So, we have no need to send the raw material to Louisville in Kentucky in order to save the economy.

Once the production is started in Pittsburg, Kansas then important criteria is to send the finished product to individual teams. Because we have a low cost the product at the production house and bulk of goods faced a very normal cost to transship the products for each team in Alabama state.

Suppose, If we send the finished products from Pittsburg, Kansas to Alabama and again to send the products from Alabama to each and every team members then the production cost and tranship costs are going high.

So, as per my analysis, better to import the raw material from Nigeria(it's very near to Pittsburg) so Import costs will be reduced instead of to get from South East Asia. Later, we have a good option is to use the production house in Pittsburg instead of to use the other production house in Louisville, Kentucky. Later, the corked bats directly exported from Pittsburg to each and every individual team instead of to send Alabama & again they will dispatch to each team.

I have added an image to this mail regarding brief information of about export & import of cork in states of countries inorder to save all the costs.

If we do like the above table then we may save all the costs.

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