A Maintenance Department Replaces a Malfunctioning Machine with a Standby

question 7

Essay

A maintenance department replaces a malfunctioning machine with a standby machine if one is available; otherwise, they repair the broken machine as soon as possible. When a standby machine is available, production down time is greatly reduced. The department has reviewed its historical maintenance records on machine breakdowns and found this pattern for the past four weeks: If a standby machine is not available when a breakdown occurs, the estimated cost is $400 due to lost production time, overtime usage on the other machines, and emergency repair procedures. On the other hand, weekly cost for machines not in use is estimated to be $200 due to storage and special handling expenses. The department manager wants to use a payoff table to determine how many standby machines they should maintain.
a. Construct a table showing the cost associated with each decision alternative (number of computers stocked) and state of nature (number of computers needed) combination.
b. Compute the probability of each state of nature.
c. How many standby computers should be stocked in order to minimize their expected costs?

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Definitions:

Humanistic Therapy

A form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal growth and the concept of self-actualization.

Cognitive Therapy

A type of psychotherapy that focuses on changing negative patterns of thought to improve emotional well-being and behavior.

Aversive Conditioning

A method of behavior modification that uses negative stimuli to induce a change in behavior.

Unwanted Behaviors

Actions or reactions that are considered undesirable or inappropriate within a given context or societal norms.