X-Print Manufacturing makes laser printers. One plant assembles the PL-4000 model. Standards indicate that one worker can assemble five printers per day. This model costs about $350 to make, and the company figures it costs $5 to hold one printer in inventory for one month. Workers earn $1500 per month and can be hired for $500 each; firing a worker costs $750. Currently, there are 12 workers in the assembly department. If a printer is backordered, the cost is $35 per unit per month.

(a) Find the minimum constant work force needed to meet monthly demand. What is the total cost of the constant work force plan?
(b) Develop a zero inventory plan (JIT Production) for this problem and determine the cost of this plan.
(c) Because the plans in (a) and (b) do not consider backorders, your boss asks you to develop a constant work-force plan that allows backorders. Which is the better plan?
(d) Formulate this as a linear programming problem.

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