Single Minutes Exchange of Dies .

1. Assume you are a consultant for Acme Inc., a successful company who hasn’t faced much competition in the past. Recently, the company has faced challenges from a competitor who can meet customer demand more quickly and with lower cost. Identify how Single Minutes Exchange of Dies (SMED) might help Acme improve its responsiveness to customer demand by developing a 150-200 word executive summary to Acme’s CEO.

2. Linear programming is an excellent technique yet is not applied nearly enough in the “real world.” Discuss the benefits of linear programming and explain why it is not used that much.

Answer preview

Linear programming in business is the use of linear functions to estimate the probable optimal allocation of resources that gives the maximum profit at the least cost. Linear programming is necessary because it enables a business to identify the combination of resources that it can utilize to come up with the highest profit margin while using the least cost of production (Paris, 2016). However, linear programming is not extensively used because it assumes that all situations are linear meaning it cannot be used in non-linear cases. Moreover,