The Most Delicious Ice Cream Company uses block stacking to store pallet loads of its finished goods in frozen storage. The dimensions of the pallet load are 36  48. Each load consists of 40 half-gallon cartons, eight cartons to a layer and five layers to a pallet. Using walkie stacker lift trucks, pallet loads of ice cream are stacked three-high. The storage aisle is 8 wide, and a clearance of 12 is to be used between storage rows. A production run of 30 pallet loads of Hot Fudge Delight occurs. It is expected that the product will be withdrawn from storage at a uniform rate of five per day; however, the first withdrawal will not occur immediately. Specifically, the inventory level for day k is given to be Ik  30 for k  1, ..., 4 Ik  50  5k for k  5, ..., 9.

a. If loads are stacked two deep in a row, what will be the average amount of floor space required in the freezer over the life of the production lot?

b. If loads are stacked three deep in a row, what will be the average amount of floor space required in the freezer over the life of the production lot?

c. What is the optimum row depth?

d. If Q  50, s  0, and row depths of three and five are available for storage, how should the 50 unit loads be distributed among the storage rows in order to minimize the average amount of floor space required?