HOW MANY TO ORDER? Mark Steele's father owns a store that sells video game consoles, including the popular AllSport platform, which sells for $299.95. The store has limited stor- age space, however, so Mr. Steele must plan his orders carefully. He wants to minimize the total cost of ordering AllSport platforms and holding them in stock while still selling as many as possible. Mark thinks that he can help. Here is the information that Mark's father has provided. The local distributor of AllSport platforms maintains a warehouse just outside the city and guarantees next- morning delivery of all order requests. Mr. Steele will place an order whenever he runs out and will receive the order the next morning. Mr. Steele will order the same number of AllSport platforms each time he places an order. The fixed cost of each order regardless of the size of the order, called the order cost, is $150. This is in addi- tion to the price of each console. The order cost includes the value of Mr. Steele's time to order, receive, and stock the consoles as well as the cost of delivering them to the store. Mr. Steele calculates his holding cost to be $0.15 per console per day. The holding cost includes the cost of stor age as well as the financial cost of having money invested in inventory instead of earning money in another invest- ment. For example, if 10 AllSport platforms were in storage one day, their holding cost for that day would be $150 Mr. Steele forecasts selling a total of 350 AllSport platforms between March 1 and August 31. Figures from nast vears show that sales have been approximately evenly distributed over this time period.