Howard Mechanical Corporation
manufactures two products. Each product involves a certain amount of broaching,
grinding and polishing as detailed below:
Product A B
Broaching 8 hours 10 hours
Grinding 5 hours 4 hours
Polishing 10 hours 6 hours
For the coming month, the
corporation has maximum available capacities of 600 hours for polishing, 800
hours for broaching and 400 hours for grinding.
Product A is fabricated from 5 kg of
aluminium; product B requires 2 kg of brass. For the coming month, 100 kg of
brass and 350 kg of aluminium are available for use in the corporation.
If the same profit, $800, is derived
from the sale of each product,
(i) What is the optimum combination of products
for the coming month and what profit will be made?
(ii) Two proposals have been submitted for your
consideration. The first proposal recommends the purchase of additional
supplies of aluminium for the coming month and the second proposal recommends
that additional people should be employed on a casual basis for polishing. Is
either proposal worth further investigation? Justify your answer by indicating
the increased potential profit associated with each of the two proposals.
