APPLIANCE PRODUCTION. Kemper Manufacturing can produce five major appliances— stoves, washers, electric dryers, gas dryers, and refrigerators. All products go through three processes—molding/pressing, assembly, and packaging. Each week there are 4800 minutes available for molding/pressing, 3000 available for packaging, 1200 for stove assembly, 1200 for refrigerator assembly, and 2400 that can be used for assembling washers and dryers. The following table gives the unit molding/pressing, assembly, and packing times (in minutes) as well as the unit profits.
a. What weekly production schedule do you recommend? What is the significance of the fractional values?
b. Suppose the following additional conditions applied:
• The number of washers should equal the combined number of dryers.
• The number of electric dryers should not exceed the number of gas dryers by more than 100 per week.
• The number of gas dryers should not exceed the number of electric dryers by more than 100 per week.
Now what weekly production schedule do you recommend?