Question

GE produces 5 different sizes of TVs using 2 machines. Different sizes of TVs take different amount of time to get processed at each of the two machines, and bring in different amount of profit for the company per unit. GE has a limited amount of time to process TVs during each month but would like to find out how many of each size of TV to produce each month to maximize its total profit.
How many decision variables are needed to properly formulate this problem?

Select one:

a. 2

b. 7

c. 5

d. Cannot be determined with the given amount of information

e. 10

Answer 1

Answer:

Option # C: 5

Step-by-step explanation:

Decision variables, as the name imply are entities that can have different values in the given scenario and which in turn produce different outcomes. For our question, the variables are the sizes of TVs available, as the production time and profit depend on the sizes. Hence, TV sizes (i.e. 5) are our decision variables.

Furthermore, it does not matter on which machine the TVs are being manufactured as they will take identical time for same TV size. Thus we do not consider the number of machines as our decision variables.