Question: A product design firm develops new products using a team of 4 types of specialists: Marketing specialists; Manufacturing specialists; Design specialists; and Engineering specialists. Each

A product design firm develops new products using

A product design firm develops new products using a team of 4 types of specialists: Marketing specialists; Manufacturing specialists; Design specialists; and Engineering specialists. Each employee earns $100,000 per year and can perform their role on the team as follows: a A Marketing specialist has a capacity of 12 new products/yr (i.e., roughly 16 to 17 days of a Marketing Specialist's time are needed, assuming roughly 200 working days per year), a Manufacturing specialist has a capacity of 8 new products/yr; a Design specialist has a capacity of 11 new products/yr; and an Engineering specialist has a capacity of 6 new products/yr. The firm creates a team of some mix of Marketers, Manufacturers, Designers, and Engineers who then all work simultaneously to focus on developing only one product until that product is complete, and then they move to the next product. Of the options given, how many of each type of employee should be on a team? Hint: we want to minimize cost. If we have a team of 1 Marketer, 1 Manufacturer, 1 Designer, and 1 Engineer it costs us $100,000 each or $400,000 in total, and we can develop 6 new products per year (the Engineeer's capacity is only 6/yr so that's all we can deliver, is 6 products per year). Thus our cost per product would be ($400,000/yr ) / (6 products/yr) =$66,667/ product. If we have a team of 1 Marketer, 2 Manufacturers, 2 Designers, and 2 Engineers it costs us $100,000 each or $700,000 in total, and we can develop 12 products per year (the Marketer is a bottleneck) and our cost/product is ($700,000/yr ) / (12 products/year) =$58,333, so this would be better (but not necessarily best). 3 Marketer, 3 Manufacturers, 3 Designers, and 5 Engineers 3 Marketer, 4 Manufacturers, 3 Designer, and 4 Engineers 2 Marketers, 4 Manufacturers, 3 Designers, and 5 Engineers 3 Marketer, 4 Manufacturers, 3 Designers, and 5 Engineers

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