Question

The Weemow Lawn Service wants to start doing snow removal in winter when there are no lawns to maintain. Jeff and Julie Weems, who own the service, are trying to determine how much equipment they need to purchase, based on various job types they have. They plan to work themselves and hire some local college students on a per-job basis. Based on historical weather data, they estimate that there will be 6 major snowfalls next winter. Virtually all customers want their snow removed no more than 2 days after the snow stops falling. Working 10 hours per Day (into the night), Jeff and Julie can remove the snow from a normal driveway in about 1 hour, and it take about 4 hours to remove snow from a business parking lot and sidewalk. The variable cost (mainly for labor and gas) per job is $12 for a driveway and $47 for a parking lot. Using their lawn service customer base as a guideline, they believe they will have demand of no more than 40 homeowners and 25 businesses. They plan to charge $35 for home driveway and $120 for a business parking lot, which is slightly less than the going rate. They want to know how many jobs of each type will maximize their profit.

Problem 2

A: Alternatively, hiring additional people on a per job basis will increase Jeff and Julie’s variable cost to $16 for a driveway and $53 for a parking lot, but it will lower the time it takes to clear a driveway to 40 mins and a parking lot to 3 hours. Will this affect their profit?

B: If Jeff and Julie combine the two alternatives (b) and (c), will this affect their profit?

Only problem 2...Specifically, why does the time constraint change to be less than 100? The correct answers for 2a is 2435 and for 2b is 2073

Answer 1