†Silicon Valley Corporation (Silvco) manufactures transistors. An important aspect of the...

†Silicon Valley Corporation (Silvco) manufactures transistors. An important aspect of the manufacture of transistors is the melting of the element germanium (a major component of a transistor) in a furnace. Unfortunately, the melting process yields germanium of highly variable quality.

Two methods can be used to melt germanium; method 1 costs $50 per transistor, and method 2 costs $70 per transistor. The qualities of germanium obtained by methods 1 and 2 are shown in Table 80. Silvco can refire melted germanium in an attempt to improve its quality. It costs $25 to refine the melted germanium for one transistor The results of the refiring process are shown in Table 81. Silvco has sufficient furnace capacity to melt or refire germanium for at most 20,000 transistors per month. Silvco’s monthly demands are for 1,000 grade 4 transistors, 2,000 grade 3 transistors, 3,000 grade 2 transistors, and 3,000 grade 1 transistors. Use linear programming to minimize the cost of producing the needed transistors.

table 80

table 81

‡Note: Grade 1 is poor, grade 4 is excellent. The quality of the germanium dictates the quality of the manufactured transistor.