A furniture manufacturer sells a line of desks with the same general design. The desks are made from veneered plywood sheets, and the purchase plan for the plywood is to be determined for the next seven weeks. The desks are offered in three styles, each with minor modifications in the drawer layout. Marketing forecasts for the three styles are given as follows:

It takes one week to produce the desks, with a production run of 300 for style A and 100 each for styles B and C. Currently, 80 style B desks and 200 style C desks are on hand. Current production plans will make available 200 style A desks in week 1, with none currently on hand. No production is currently scheduled for styles B and C desks. All other parts for the desks are readily available and cause no delay in producing the finished desks.
For the plywood veneer sheets (three sheets = one desk), there are 2,400 sheets on hand and 600 more are to be received in week 2. Once an order is placed, it takes, on the average, two weeks to obtain a plywood order. Minimum orders are for 1,000 sheets with a safety stock of 200 sheets to be on hand at all times.
(a) Develop a schedule for timing the release of plywood purchase orders over the next seven weeks.
(b) Suppose the costs for delaying production are $5 per day for each plywood sheet that has not arrived in time to meet production needs. Correspondingly, the cost for carrying plywood that arrives in advance of needs is $0.10 per sheet per day. The average order cycle time on purchase orders is two weeks (14 days) with a standard deviation of two days. These lead times are normally distributed. How should purchase order release time be adjusted to account for this uncertainty?

Transcribed Image Text:

WEEKLY DEMAND FORECAST (UNITS) Desk Style A150 150 200 200 150 200 200150 Style B 60 60 60 80 80 100 80 60 Style C100120 100 80 80 60 60 40