The manager of a plant has been instructed to hire and train additional employee
ID: 3372238 • Letter: T
Question
The manager of a plant has been instructed to hire and train additional employees to manufacture a new product. She must hire a sufficient number of new employees so that within 30 days they will be producing 2500 units of the product each day.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Because a new employee must learn an assigned task, production will increase with training. Suppose that research on similar projects indicates that production increases with training according to the learning curve, so that for the average employee, the rate of production per day is given by
<?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" />dN/dt= be -at
where N is the number of units produced per day after t days of training and a and b are constants that depend on the project. Because of experience with a similar project, the manager expects the rate for this project to be
dN/dt=2.5e -0.05t
The manager tested her training program with 5 employees and learned that the average employee could produce 11 units per day after 5 days of training. On the basis of this information, she must decide how many employees to hire and begin to train 50 that a month from now they will be producing 2500 units of the product per day. She estimates that it will take her 10 days to hire the employees, and thus she will have 15 days remaining to train them. She also expects a 10% attrition rate during this period.
How many employees would you advise the plant manager to hire? Check your advice by answering the following questions.
I. Use the expected rate of production and the results of the manager's test to find the function relating N and t%u2014that is, N = N(t).
2. Find the number of units the average employee can produce after 15 days of training. How many such employees would be needed to maintain a production rate of 2500 units per day?
3. Explain how you would revise this last result to account for the expected 10% attrition rate. How many new employees should the manager hire?
Explanation / Answer
1.)
To go from the first derivative dN/dt to the function N(t) itself requires antidifferentiation. This is the antiderivative, which would be N=-50e^-.05t+C
Use the results of the manager's test to solve for C:
N(5) = 11
=> 11=-50e^-.05*5+C
=> C=49.94
So N(t)=-50e^-.05t+49.94
2.)
First, I have to find how many units the average employee can produce after 15 days of training. This is asking for the value of N(15). At first, set up the equation to look like
N=-50e^(.05*15)+49.94
=> N=26.32 no. of units
The phrase "such employees" refers to employees with 15 days of training. Use your value of N(15) to calculate the requested number (that's a division problem).
=2500/26.32=94.98 ~ 95 employees
3.)
95 x 1.10 = 104.5 = 105, so 105 employees are needed.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.