The Tech Manufacturing Company is contemplating the acquisition of a transfer line to make digital adapters for its highly successful Tech- o-Tronic brand of multi-frequency desktop widgets.

The making of widget adapters is a multi-step process. It requires rough drilling, finished reaming. Different vendors have been invited to submit bids for the machines and buffers that will make up the line.

Your assignment is to design a the least expensive line (the line with the least expensive combination of machines and buffers) that produces widgets at a required production rate of 56 parts per hour. You must determine which of the following machines should the company purchase, and what size buffers should it use, to minimize the cost of the line.

The following is a summary of the information supplied by the vendors. Operating rates (operations per minute) are the rates that machines can do operations when they are not under repair, not starved, and not blocked.

-The ALPHA Machine Tool Company has a rough drilling machine (Alpha_R) that costs $25,000 that can do 1.0 operations per minute and has a mean time to fail of 400 hours and a mean time to repair of 20 hours.

-The ALPHA Machine Tool Company has a final reaming machine (Alpha_F) that costs $50,000 that can do 1.0 operations per minute and has a mean time to fail of 500 hours and a mean time to repair of 20 hours.

-The BETA Machine Tool Company has a rough drilling machine (Beta_R) that costs $20,000 that can do 1.0 operations per minute and has a mean time to fail of 150 hours and a mean time to repair of 30 hours.

-The BETA Machine Tool Company has a final reaming machine (Beta_F) that costs $45,000 that can do 1.0 operations per minute and has a mean time to fail of 9,000 operations and a mean time to repair of 20 hours.

Parts in storage costs between the drilling and reaming machines cost $100. What is the the final cost and buffer size of the optimal line?