Bill Edstrom, managing partner at a biomedical consulting firm, has requested your expert advice in devising the best schedule for the following consulting projects, starting at the beginning of the day on February 2.

	DESCRIPTION OF CONSULTATION	CALL RECEIVED
TASK	LENGTH	COMPANY	DATE	TIME	DUE DATE (CLOSE OF BUSINESS)
I	3 days	Novartis Corp.	February 1	9 A.M.	February 5
II	1 day	Reardon Biotech Corp.	February 1	10 A.M.	February 6
III	2 days	Vertex Pharmaceuticals	February 1	11 A.M.	February 8
IV	4 days	OSI Pharmaceuticals	February 1	1 P.M.	February 7

The consulting firm charges a flat rate of $4,000 per day. All four firms impose fines for lateness. Reardon Biotech charges a $500-per-day fine for each day that the completion of the consulting work is past the due date; Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, and OSI Pharmaceuticals all charge a fine of $1,500 per day for each day late.

Prepare alternative schedules based on the following priority rules: SOT, FCFS, EDD, STR, and another rulelongest processing time (LPT), which orders jobs according to longest assigned first, second longest assigned second, and so on. For the sake of simplicity, assume that consulting work is performed seven days a week.

a. Calculate the total costs (sum of the late fines) for each rule.