1. Red Box Manufacturing Company must decide how many plastic coolers to produce
ID: 455763 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Red Box Manufacturing Company must decide how many plastic coolers to produce in the next month. Red Box currently produces three kinds of coolers: 12 qt, 20 qt, and 48 qt. Details for each product are given in the table below.
Model
Profit
Labor
Plastic
Demand
12 qt
$4
1
1.81
2501
20 qt
$9
3
3.06
1088
48 qt
$14
3.3
4.88
1261
Amount on hand
9430
14150
Use Solver to find the best product mix. Your answer should not consume more resources than the amount on hand, and production amounts should not exceed forecasted demand.
Write an email to your supervisor, Sebastian, in the box below. Your email should consist of one or two paragraphs containing your recommendations. Your recommendatons should include the optimal product mix and the expected profit from your recommendations. In addition, consider the aspects of the problem that are limiting profit. Suggest strategies for mitigating these limitations and increasing profit. If you are unable to complete the problem, write "Unable to solve" in the box. I will then assess your work for partial credit.
Model
Profit
Labor
Plastic
Demand
12 qt
$4
1
1.81
2501
20 qt
$9
3
3.06
1088
48 qt
$14
3.3
4.88
1261
Amount on hand
9430
14150
Explanation / Answer
Hello Sir,
The product mix problem is solved using MS Excel solver function. The number of coolers to be produced to maximise the profit limiting the usage of resources (Labour & Plastic) to the given amount are 2501 quantity of 12 qt coolers, 922 quantity of 20 qt coolers and 1261 quantity of 48 qt coolers. This solution helps us reach the maximum possible total profit of $ 35956.
As this said solution uses up all available labor & some plastic is still leftover with 20 qt coolers demand not met (only 922 coolers of 20 qt type produced agaisnt the demand of 1088 quantity). This helps us understand that the labor used up for the 20 qt cooler is more in proportion than that required for other 2 cooler models. Thus if the labor required for the 20 qt cooler is reduced to say 2.5, we can make the maximum profit by meeting all the demand.
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