Serenity Living manufactures gas fireplaces for home use. Each unit produced goes through a complex quality control process. The company has observed quality control costs as follows over the past 16 weeks:

For planning purposes, the company's management wants to know the amount of variable quality control costs per unit and the total fixed quality control costs per week.

Required:
1. Using the least-squares regression method, estimate the variable and fixed elements of the quality control cost.
2. If the company produces 20 gas fireplaces next week, what are the expected total quality control costs?
3. Evaluate the economic plausibility of using units produced to predict total quality control costs.

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Week 12345or∞agMLBHS6 6 7 8 9 10 11 Units Produced 24 15 30 12 18 27 20 21 17 19 22 29 26 14 16 28 Total Quality Control Costs $540 $400 $620 $380 $480 $580 $500 $511 $442 $469 $521 $616 $569 $391 $430 $602