9.5 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people tend to opt for comfort whilst confined to their homes. Zara-Phi is a well-known designer of loungewear in the greater Durban area. The factory is located in an area where all raw materials can be purchased from a 100-metre radius. Zara-Phi has recently taken on two new employees, a qualified tailor, Ms Minnie, and a general assistant to Ms Minnie, Ms Maxi. Being a second-year fashion design student, Ms Maxi does not have the qualification or the experience that Ms Minnie has. Therefore, Ms Maxi takes 10\% longer than Ms Minnie to learn the job. Ms Minnie has completed her training on company procedures and production; she has begun working on the production of men's loungewear. The company has a large order, from ELS Fusion Wear, which will be produced and procured in batches. It took Ms Minnie 200 hours to produce the first batch of men's loungewear, and just 120 hours for the second batch. Ms Maxi was assigned to take on the production of young adults' loungewear. An order of the same magnitude and specifications was placed by ELS Fusion Wear. Ms Minnie supervises Ms Maxi while she works independently. Ms Maxi takes 160 hours to complete the first batch. Cumulative production doubles for each subsequent order. In total, 64 batches were produced. Learning will stop at the first 32 batches. Ms Minnie is remunerated at R95 per hour and Ms Maxi at R65 per hour. Due to the recent increase in transport cost, Zara-Phi has also introduced a travel allowance for all employees of R50 per week. A workweek consists of five days, based on the assumption of eight hours per workday. Once the order for ELS Fusion Wear is complete, Ms Minnie will receive a 2% production bonus (on total production), which will be based on Zara-Phis total labour cost to produce six batches of men's or young adults' loungewes. Ms Maxi will receive a 0.75% bonus based on the labour costs associated with the production of her six batches of young adults' loungewear. Required: (a) Based on the information provided above, calculate the following: (i) The learning curve for both employees (ii) Total time taken by Ms Minnie to finish all 32 batches (iii) Total time taken by Ms Maxi to finish all 64 batches (iv) Number of weeks to complete both orders for ELS Fusion Wear (v) Amount of travel allowance spent by Zara-Phi on both employees (vi) The total labour cost for Ms Minnie and Ms Maxi (including the bonus). (b) Zara-Phi predicted that the learning rate for production of a new product would be 80%, however the actual learning rate was 75%. The following possible reasons were stated for this: (i) The number of new employees recruited was lower than expected. (ii) Unexpected problems were encountered with production. (iii) Unexpected changes to health and safety laws meant that the company had to increase the number of breaks for employees during production. Which of the above reasons could have caused the difference between the expected rate of learning and the actual rate of learning? A. All of the above B. (ii) and (iii) only C. (i) only D. None of the above
