Gang Aft Agley, a manufacturing company, faces the aggregate planning problem shown in the table below. Cost of regular production is $5 per unit, the cost of producing the same unit on overtime is $7.50, the cost of subcontracting is $9 per unit, and the cost of carrying a unit in inventory from one month to the next is $2.
The labor contract at the plant prohibits overtime output to exceed 300 units in any five month window (that is the entire time horizon being considered); likewise, subcontracting output also can’t exceed 300 units in any five month window. The plant capacity is 600 units per month (during regular time) produced using two shifts, regardless of the number of days in a month. By policy, management wants to avoid stockouts.
Formulate the aggregate plan considering regular time costs, overtime costs, subcontracted production costs, inventory costs and the necessary constraints using linear programming and solve it using Excel Solver for obtaining the optimum minimum costfor the 5-month horizon.