1. The distribution center for a chain of home improvement stores is focusing on paint. They handle a total of 25 base colors (5 each from 5 suppliers) so there are 25 SKU's of paint. (These are later tinted at the store to meet customer specific demand but this question only deals with the base colors.) Each SKU will be floor-stacked 4 pallets high. The question is which of the SKUs would be best stored in the area of the warehouse with a lane depth of 3 pallet positions and an aisle 3-pallet positions wide? That is, what measure(s) and range(s) of that(those) measure(s) should you consider to select the SKU's to put in this part of the warehouse?

2. Develop a model that can be solved to find the lane depth that minimizes the average floor space for a pallet flow rack. Then solve this model to find the optimal lane depth. You may assume random storage is being used so as long as there is a pallet in the flow rack, another SKU cannot be placed in it.