Montpelier is planning its production of skis for the months of July, August, and September. Production capacity and unit production cost will change from month to month. Production levels should meet both demand forecasts and end-of-quarter inventory requirement in every month. Skis can be stored in a warehouse to satisfy demand in later months. An inventory holding cost will be incurred in that case. Initial inventory at the beginning of July = 200 pairs. Ending inventory required at the end of September =800 pairs. Holding cost per month per ski is $0.5.Month Demand Production Capacity Unit Production CostJuly 300 1000 25August 500 800 26September 700 400 29Management would like to schedule production to minimize its costs for the quarter.(a) Formulate the problem mathematically by clearly defining the decision variables, objective function and constraints.(b) Implement this problem in excel to solve for the optimal solution.

Blue computers, a major pc manufacturer in the united states, currently has plants in kentucky and pennsylvania. the kentucky plant has a capacity of 1 million units a year and the pennsylvania plant has a capacity of 1.5 million units a year. the firm divides the united states into five markets: northeast, southeast, midwest, south, and west. each pc sells for $1,000. the firm anticipates a 50 perc~nt growth in demand (in each region) this year (after which demand will stabilize) and wants to build a plant with a capacity of 1.5 million units per year to accommodate the growth. potential sites being considered are in north carolina and california. currently the firm pays federal, state, and local taxes on the income from each plant. federal taxes are 20 percent of income, and all state and local taxes are 7 percent of income in each state. north carolina has offered to reduce taxes for the next 10 years from 7 percent to 2 percent. blue computers would like to take the tax break into consideration when planning its network. consider income over the next 10 years in your analysis. assume that all costs remain unchanged over the 10 years. use a discount factor of 0.1 for your analysis. annual fixed costs, production and shipping costs per unit, and current regional demand (before the 50 percent growth) are shown in table 5-13. (a) if blue computers sets an objective of minimizing total fixed and variable costs, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? (b) if blue computers sets an objective of maximizing after-tax profits, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? variable production and shipping cost ($/unit) annual fixed cost northeast southeast midwest south west (million$) kentucky 185 180 175 175 200 150 pennsylvania 170 190 180 200 220 200 n. carolina 180 180 185 185 215 150 california 220 220 195 195 175 150 demand ('000 units/month) 700 400 400 300 600