The new office supply company XYZ is a distributor and sells different types of office chairs. Its catalogues list over 50 items. Helen has recently joined this company as an inventory manager. Her first task is to review the inventory management systems. She randomly selected a representative sample of 10 items from the full catalogue range, which is shown in the below table. Company XYZ holds stocks of the sampled chairs. Table 2 also shows the number of each held in stock, their cost per item and the demand per year for each. Table 2. Representative sample of 10 catalogue items Stock Number Annual Demand Sales Unit Cost () A/101 100 300 C/030 55 190 D/120 100 60 C/090 800 A/145 150 B/220 100 C/150 200 E/020 300 F/180 100 B/005 500 420 200 180 160 80 310 800 Average number in stock 10 5 20 100 30 15 30 40 25 20 (c) The best-selling chair is C/090. The existing re-order quantity for C/090 is 50. Make up your own figures, i.e., come up with your own figures, for holding cost and ordering cost for the chair C/090. How much should the company order the item C/090 at a time? What recommendations would you give to Helen? Discuss if and how the advice would change if your chosen figures were both (i) higher and (ii) lower. (d) Describe the main costs associated with inventory and discuss whether inventory is good or bad for businesses. Calculate the annual holding and ordering costs associated with C/090 (to two decimal places) using your figures from question c. (e) Helen would like to see how the EOQ analysis is applied in another business setting. Select one operation of any type - this could be within manufacturing or services. Write no more than 300 words to (i) characterise the output of the operations in terms of the 4Vs (i.e., volume, variety, variation and visibility) and (ii) assess the potential for applying the EOQ model to this operation to suggest ways in which the operations could be improved. You can draw from your observations or experience as a consumer or visitor. Where appropriate, you can make up reasonable figures to support your analysis. It can be the same operation that you used in Question 1.