CREATE A DECISON TREE AND DECIDE WHATS THE BEST SOLUTION BASED OFF SITUATION

At 9:15am on Monday, Michelle, the owner of DC Electronics, received a call from Joe of WH Systems, who is a long-time friend, about some contract work. WH Systems is looking for engineering help on the design a servo motor control chip, an area that DC Electronics expertise is well-known in the field. The job is quite urgent -- WH Systems is willing to pay DC Electronics an above-market-rate of $200,000 for the job to be started on Tuesday morning. Based on the details given by Joe over the phone, Michelle believes that this job would take one of her engineers 4 to 8 days to complete.

Michelle calls Barack, the only engineer available at the moment who has the expertise to complete the job. I am mostly free this week and I may be able to take on this interesting job but there will be complications if it goes beyond this Friday, Barack says. I have been occupied with our moon-lander chip project, and I am held up waiting for the use of our nano lab, which is why I am free this week. I need to use the lab for a full week, and the nano team has told me that it could be free either next week or the week after but not both. If it becomes available next week and Im somehow still tied up by this project with Joe, Ill have to wait for a month for the next chance to use the lab.

This does sound like a problem to Michelle. Would that mean you wont be able to meet the moon-landers deadline?

Yes, and in that case the delay would cost our company $300,000. This is why I want to make sure the job with Joe can be done in 4 days if I start tomorrow (Tuesday) to finish by Friday, Barack says. Based on the specs described by Joe, I think the chances I can finish by Friday is just 50-50.

Can you tell the nano lab manager Kamala to just move things around and schedule you in the lab two weeks from now, so there will be ample time for Joes job?

I wish I could, but Kamala is running some experiment there herself which she doesnt know if it will be done by the end of this week or the next. She did say that its twice as likely that its available next week as the week after; though she will give me a definite answer by Thursday, says Barack.

If Joes job does take more than 4 days, is there any chance you can work through the coming weekend?

No way. My daughter is graduating from college and I cant miss the commencement this weekend. What I can do is to go over to Joes this afternoon and look at the job on site. This way I should be able to tell whether it can be done within the week, says Barack.

Michelle thinks this is a great solution, so he calls Joe to propose sending Barack over in the afternoon.

Michelle, please do send him this afternoon by all means. But the job is really urgent, so if you dont take it right now, Ill have to call other contractors. If one of them accepts the job unconditionally, then Baracks trip will be wasted. But if no one else has accepted the job by the time Barack is here, Ill still prefer to work with you guys.

Michelle finds this a tough decision to make. She suggests to call Joe back in 15 minutes. Given the skill level required for this job, she thinks theres just a 25% chance that another contractor will agree to take up the job before Baracks visit. But the job is lucrative and shes tempted to accept it straight away; though if the risks are too high it may also make sense to just tell Joe thanks but no thanks.

What should she tell Joe when she calls back in 15 minutes?

Question 9

Using a decision tree, find out Michelles optimal strategy. Upload a spreadsheet file (if you use PrecisionTree) of your decision tree, or a photo if you have a hand-written decision tree. Clearly indicate the optimal strategy in your submission.

Question 10

Based on your decision tree, how does the optimal strategy change with regard to the probability of Barack being able to finish the job within 4 days? [<50 words expected]