According to the article, "The new and upgraded facilities were essential to unlock the plant's installed capacity of 200 000 vehicles per year...", and "The expanded production for the Next-Gen Ranger also contributed to significant job creation (with] the addition of a third production shift at the Silverton plant in 2022. A total of 1 200 jobs were added for the new shit, taking Ford's total workforce to 5 500 employees."

Each employee at the Silverton plant worked 8 hours per day for 300 days during 2022.

Roguired:

• 3.1. Suppose that 5 000 employees were directly involved in the production of the 200 000 at the Silverton plant during 2022, calculate the expected labour productivity at the Silverton plant in terms of vehicle per labour hour (round off answer to four decimal (5marks) places.
• 3.2. The information provided below relates to the operations at the Silverton plant (after the expanded production) during the 2022 financial year:

INFORMATION

Production volume

200 000 vehicles

Total labour cost

Material cost per vehicle

5 500 workforce @ R200 per hour each

R15000

(7 marks'

Total manufacturing overhead

R9 000 per vehicle

Design and other production expenses

R3 000 per vehicle

IT the average ex-factory price of the Next-Gen Ford Ranger vehicle produced at the Silverton plant in 2022 was R400 000, calculate the multifactor productivity after the expanded production (round off answer to two decimal places).

• 3.3. Suppose that the multifactor productivity at the Silverton plant before the expanded production was 9.25, determine the multifactor productivity (MFP) growth rate (round off answer to two decimal places).
• 3.4. By extracting relevant evidence from the article, suggest TWO possible reasons for the productivity growth that has taken place at the Silverion plant as evidenced by the answer obtained in question 3.3 above.