Question

Q1.In Ethiopia, the apparel sector is considered as one of the priority areas of the government‘s industrial development strategy. However, the sector has faced many challenges to determine product mix. It is confronted with inefficient utilization of resources that makes it difficult to ensure the optimal product mix for maximum profit, which would also fulfil customer needs. Thus, this study focuses on product mix determination based on efficient resource utilization for the Ethiopian apparel sector by considering a garment factory in Ethiopia as a case company. The issue addressed here was to determine the product mix for optimal profit with available resources, using the linear programming technique.

A garment factory in Ethiopia should produce for men’s wear: Polo shirt and basic T-shirt. The data collection procedure was quantitative in nature and relied on face to-face interviews. The relevant information on the amount of resources used per unit of each product during the month is summarized in Table 1 below:

Products	Resources Used per unit of the products
	Cutting (Minutes)	Sewing(Minutes)	Finishing(Minutes)
Polo T-Shirts	22	20	2
Basic T- Shirts	11	5	1

The availability of resources for cutting, sewing and finishing time is 2321, 1050 and 250 minutes respectively.

The minimum market demand and profit earned from each product during the month for the case apparel company are shown in Table 2.

	Polo T-Shirts	Basic T- Shirts
Market Demand	20	80
Profit per Unit ( Ethiopian Birr)	422	362

>Formulate and solve (graphically in excel) the above product mix problem by using Linear

>Programming Technique. Are there any redundant constraints? If yes, then identify and support your answer with reasons.

Answer 1