A Printing Company Estimates That It Will Require 1,000 Reams

question 32

Essay

A printing company estimates that it will require 1,000 reams of a certain type of paper in a given period. The cost of carrying one unit in inventory for that period is 50 cents. The company buys the paper from a wholesaler in the same town, sending its own truck to pick up the orders at a fixed cost of $20.00 per trip. Treating this cost as the order cost, what is the optimum number of reams to buy at one time?
How many times should lots of this size be bought during this period?
What is the minimum cost of maintaining inventory on this item for the period?
Of this total cost, how much is carrying cost and how much is ordering cost?

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Definitions:

Activity At Capacity

The level of operations where a company or a production process is utilizing all available resources without any waste.

Fixed Manufacturing Overhead

Indirect manufacturing costs that do not change with the level of production, such as salaries of managers and depreciation of factory equipment.

Estimated Labor-Hours

A projection of the total hours of work required to complete a task or project.

Variable Manufacturing Overhead

The indirect, variable costs associated with manufacturing a product, which change in proportion to production volume.