Greaves Brewery is a small producer of lagers and ales located in Trinidad. Lesley Simpson, thechief engineer, is completing the design of a major upgrade to Greaves' bottling facilities. Afterthe beer is bottled and placed in cases, the cases are placed on pallets. Simpson must decidewhether to continue the brewery's past practice of using manual labor, or to invest in one of twocompeting automatic palletizes. Analysis of the issue involves a simple process analysis, followedby financial trade-offs between recurring labor costs and one-time incremental investments. Thecase presents both quantitative and qualitative information that can be used to support orchallenge various options, including pallet height changes, and conveyor choice

As Lesley Simpson, what is your analysis of the palleting decision? What would you recommend?