The Paris Paint company is in the process of planning labor force requirements and production levels for the next four quarters. The marketing department has provided production with the following forecasts of demand for Paris Paint over the next year. Quarter Demand Forecast (in thousands of gallons)

1 380

2 630

3 220

4 160 Assume there are currently 280 employees with the company. Employees are hired for at least one full quarter. Hiring costs amount to $1200 per employee and firing costs are $2500 per employee. Inventory costs are $1 per gallon per quarter. It is estimated that one worker produces 1000 gallons of paint each quarter. Assume that Paris currently has 80,000 gallons of paint in inventory and would like to end the year with an inventory of at least 20,000 gallons.

a. Determine the zero inventory plan that hires and fires workers each quarter to match demand as closely as possible and the cost of the plan. Populate your responses in the table below.

b) Now assume that you will be using the constant workforce strategy to determine the production plan. What is the minimum number of workers required for this plan?

c) Using the answer determined in part b, determine the minimum constant workforce plan and the cost of the plan. Populate the result in the table below. In thousands