Question

(a) Best Brains College wishes to buy a new machine for printing its examination materials. Details of the two machines under consideration are as follows:

• C14 produces 7,500 copies of printed material in one hour.
• C20 produces 7,800 copies of the material in one hour.
• The monthly energy requirement for C14 is 1,200 kilowatts and that for C20 is 1,400 kilowatts.

• Each machine is programmed to work a maximum of 8 hours daily while the university works 25 days in a month.

Required:

(i). Compute the productivity of energy per day for each machine.

      (ii) If the decision to buy is based solely on the productivity of the machines, determine the one that   should be bought by management of the college.                      

Answer 1

(i)

Each machine works 8 hours daily.

C14 production for 1 day = 7500*8 = 60000 copies

C20 production for 1 day = 7800*8 = 62400 copies

C14 monthly energy requirement = 1200 kilowatts

C14 per day energy requirement = 1200/25 = 48 kilowatts

C20 monthly energy requirement = 1400 kilowatts

C20 per day energy requirement = 1400/25 = 56 kilowatts

The productivity of C14 per kilowatt energy per day = 60000/48 = 1250 copies per kilowatt per day

The productivity of C20 per kilowatt energy per day = 62400/56 = 1114.29 copies per kilowatt per day

(ii)

The productivity of C14 is higher.

Therefore, C14 should be bought by the management of the college.