WhatYouNeed is an online retailer with operations in Northern Indiana. Their network includes five big warehouses. All of the warehouses are fully automated: packaging is performed by robots on top of electric conveyors. Although the company has saved a lot in labor costs by the use of this packaging line, it has resulted in some excessive waste of material. After some analysis of this waste issue, the company has discovered that the number of product types that are assigned to the packaging line is strongly correlated with the amount of wasted material. Based on this insight, their operations manager has built a mathematical expression that estimates the expected amount of waste from the packaging line as a function of the number of product types in it. The expression is as follows: W = (n-93)2 – (n-88) + 227 In this expression, n is the number of product types you are packing on the line and W is the hourly waste of packaging material (in lbs). Based on this expression, what is the number of product types that will result in the lowest waste in the packaging line? (If your answer ends in .5, round it down.)   Question 4 options:   227 product types   88 product types   93 product types   5 product types

Purchasing and Supply Chain Management
6th Edition
ISBN:9781285869681
Author:Robert M. Monczka, Robert B. Handfield, Larry C. Giunipero, James L. Patterson
Publisher:Robert M. Monczka, Robert B. Handfield, Larry C. Giunipero, James L. Patterson
ChapterC: Cases
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 5.1SC: Scenario 3 Ben Gibson, the purchasing manager at Coastal Products, was reviewing purchasing...
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WhatYouNeed is an online retailer with operations in Northern Indiana. Their network includes five big warehouses. All of the warehouses are fully automated: packaging is performed by robots on top of electric conveyors. Although the company has saved a lot in labor costs by the use of this packaging line, it has resulted in some excessive waste of material.

After some analysis of this waste issue, the company has discovered that the number of product types that are assigned to the packaging line is strongly correlated with the amount of wasted material. Based on this insight, their operations manager has built a mathematical expression that estimates the expected amount of waste from the packaging line as a function of the number of product types in it.

The expression is as follows:

W = (n-93)2 – (n-88) + 227

In this expression, n is the number of product types you are packing on the line and W is the hourly waste of packaging material (in lbs).

Based on this expression, what is the number of product types that will result in the lowest waste in the packaging line? (If your answer ends in .5, round it down.)

 

Question 4 options:

 

227 product types

 

88 product types

 

93 product types

 

5 product types

 

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