Hello thank you for helping $***$ This is the most Important part $***$ Make sure to identify and define the decision variables, and formulate the objective function and constraints for each problem. $(Ill$ put these $in$ excel $to$ find quality answers$)(simple$ terms are easiest $to$ understand$)$

$*$Sleekfon and Sturdyfon are two major cell phone manufacturers that have recently

merged.

$*$Their current market sizes are shown in Table $2.$ All demand is in millions of units.

$*$ Sleekfon has three production facilities in Europe $($EU$),$ North America, and South America.

$*$Sturdyfon also has three production facilities in Europe $($EU$),$ North America, and the rest of Asia.

$*$The capacity $($in millions of units$),$ annual fixed costs $($in millions of $$),$ and variable production costs $($$ per unit$)$ for each plant are shown in Table $3.$

$*$ Transportation costs are shown in Table $4.$ All transportation costs are shown in dollars per unit.

$($can be tricky$)$

$*$ Duties are applied on each unit based on the fixed cost per unit capacity, variable cost per unit, and

transportation cost. Thus, a unit currently shipped from North America to Africa has a fixed cost per unit

of capacity of $$5\mathrm{.}00(=100/20$ from Table $3),$ a variable production cost of $$5\mathrm{.}50,$ and a transportation

cost of $$2\mathrm{.}20.$ The $25$ percent import duty is thus applied on $$12\mathrm{.}70(5+5\mathrm{.}50+2\mathrm{.}20)$ to give a total cost

on import of $$10\mathrm{.}88(5\mathrm{.}5+2\mathrm{.}2+0\mathrm{.}25*12\mathrm{.}70).$

$*$ For the questions to follow, assume that the market

demand is as in Table $2.$

$*$The merged company has estimated that scaling back a $20-$million$-$unit plant to $10-$ million unit and saves $30$

percent in fixed costs.

$*$Variable costs at a scaled$-$back plant are unaffected. $*$ Shutting a plant down $($either $10$ million or $20$ million units$)$ saves $80$ percent in fixed costs.

$($Heres what I willl be answering with the constriants and objectives u give$)$

a$.$ What is the lowest cost achievable for the production and distribution network after the merger if

none of the plants is shut down? Which plants serve which markets?

b$.$ What is the lowest cost achievable for the production and distribution network after the merger if

plants can be scaled back or shut down in batches of $10$ million units of capacity? Which plants serve

which markets?

thank you very much