• • B.32 This is the slack time of year at JES, Inc. The firm would actually like to shut down the plant, but if it laid off its core employees, they would probably go to work for a competitor.

JES could keep its core (full-time, year-round) employees busy by making 10,000 round tables per month, or by making 20,000 square tables per month (or some ratio thereof). JES does, however, have a contract with a supplier to buy a minimum of 5,000 square tables per month. Handling and storage costs per round table will be $10; these costs would be $8 per square table.

Draw a graph, algebraically describe the constraint inequalities and the objective function, identify the points bounding the feasible solution area, and find the cost at each point and the optimum solution. Let X1 equal the thousands of round tables per month and X2 equal the thousands of square tables per month.