(A) Ryan Arts manufactures two types of picture frames--let's call them typeX and typeY.

Each typeX frame requires 2 hours of labor and 1 unit of material to make, and each typeY frame requires 1 hour of labor and 2 units of material to make. During the upcoming week the company has 4000 hours of labor and 5000 units of material available. Naturally, during the upcoming week Ryan cannot use more labor or more material than he has available--but he could use less. The two constraints are modeled using the expressions: 2x + 1y <= 4000 (labor constraint) 1x + 2y <= 5000 (material constraint) Graph 2X + 1Y <= 4000 and 1X + 2Y <= 5000. How many points are there that satisfy these constraints?

Decision variables: Let x number of X-type frames and y number of Y-type frames be produced. Constraints: 2x + 1y 4000 (Labor hours constraint) x + 2y 5000 (Material availability constraint) x, y 0 (Non-negativity constraints) Graph:

There are an infinite number of points (all points in the white region in the above graph) which satisfy all the constraints. But there are just 4 points which are likely to give an optimal (profit maximizing) solution to the problem. They are listed below: Corner Points:

(B) Now, suppose that each frame type X contributes a profit of $2.00, and each Frame type Y contributes a profit of $3.00. Now, assuming the company wishes to maximize profit, how many of each type frame should Ryan make during the upcoming week?

The objective function is

Maximize P = 2x + 3y The following table shows the value of P at each of the corner points of the feasible region:

As seen from the table above, the optimal solution is: x = 1000, y = 2000, P = 8000 Decision: 1000 frames of Type X and 2000 frames of Type Y should be produced to maximize the profit. The maximum profit is $8000.