A company manufactures two products on two machines. The number of hours of machine time and labor depends on the machine and product as shown in the file S13_43.xlsx. The cost of producing a unit of each product depends on which machine produces it. These unit costs also appear in the same file. There are 200 hours available on each of the two machines, and there are 400 labor hours available total. This month at least 200 units of product 1 and at least 240 units of product 2 must be produced. Also, at least half of the product 1 requirement must be produced on machine 1, and at least half of the product 2 requirements must be produced on machine 2.
a. Determine how the company can minimize the cost of meeting this month’s requirements.
b. Use SolverTable to see how much the “at least half” requirements are costing the company. Do this by changing both of these requirements from “at least half” to “at least x percent,” where x can be any multiple of 5% from 0% to 50%.