Having just finalized its new tablet design, Epic Electronics's marketing team plans to begin a rollout with to only one traditional retailer for the first two months. This strategy will give consumers the perception of the product's stand-out personality and increase demand. Epic will continue with for the next four months, where it plans to distribute to three other retailers, as well. For the last six months of the year, it will initiate distribution agreements with discount retailers and online retailers, and any other electronics store that wants to carry it. The marketing team is confident that the tablet will cycle through the first three stages of its product life cycle quickly. As the tablet reaches maturity during the second half of its first year in the market, it is good strategy to proceed with , as described above

Cadbury has a chocolate factory in dunedin, new zealand. for easter, it makes two kinds of “easter eggs”: milk chocolate and dark chocolate. it cycles between producing milk and dark chocolate eggs. the table below provides data on these two products. demand (lbs per hour) milk: 500 dark: 200 switchover time (minutes) milk: 60 dark: 30 production rate per hour milk: 800 dark: 800 for example, it takes 30 minutes to switch production from milk to dark chocolate. demand for milk chocolate is higher (500lbs per hour versus 200 lbs per hour), but the line produces them at the same rate (when operating): 800 lbs per hour. a : suppose cadbury produces 2,334lbs milk chocolate and 1,652 lbs of dark chocolate in each cycle. what would be the maximum inventory (lbs) of milk chocolate? b : how many lbs of milk and dark chocolate should be produced with each cycle so as to satisfy demand while minimizing inventory?