Dylan Furtado
OIE2850 Problem Set Ch 01
03/19/2025
1-8
Toward the end of the twentieth century, the U.S. government wanted to save
money by closing a small portion of its domestic military installations. While many people
agreed that saving money was a desirable goal, people in areas potentially affected by a
closing soon reacted negatively. Congress finally selected a panel whose task was to
develop a list of installations to close, with the legislation specifying that Congress could
not alter the list. Since the goal was to save money, why was this problem so hard to solve?
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I think this problem was so hard to solve because the general idea of saving money
is optimal to most people, but only if the cuts don’t affect them. As stated, the
people living in areas who were potentially affected were the ones who became
negative, due to how this was going to affect their community. Congress members
likely don't want to be the person shutting down their areas military installation as
this would reflect negatively on them, which is why the panel had to be created in
order to remove bias.
1-14 Suppose you have just 2 hours to determine how many people in your hometown
would be interested in buying a pair of left-handed scissors. Give a step-by-step outline of
how you would seek to find out within the time allotted.
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First, I would post a poll on my social media asking people from my town to respond
with their handedness and interest in purchasing.
Next, I would quickly draft a list of places where people use or buy scissors.
o This would likely be places like schools and/or craft stores.
Then, I would head to these places and ask if who uses left-handed scissors and if
they were interested in purchasing scissors.
o If I went to a school I would go inside different classrooms, especially the art
room, and survey the students.
o At a craft store, I would ask random patrons in the store.
I would likely be at the end of the 2 hours after the survey, so I would tally the results
from both the poll and my surveys. I believe this would not yield a great
representation overall, but this is likely the best plan for the short time limit.
1-66 A manufacturing firm has received a contract to assemble 1000 units of test
equipment in the next year. The firm must decide how to organize its assembly operation.
Skilled workers, at $33 per hour each, could be assigned to individually assemble the test
Dylan Furtado
OIE2850 Problem Set Ch 01
03/19/2025
equipment. Each worker would do all the assembly steps, and it would take 2.6 hours to
complete one unit. An alternate approach would be to set up teams of four less skilled
workers (at $19 per hour each) and organize the assembly tasks so that each worker does
part of the assembly. The four-man team would be able to assemble a unit in one hour.
Which approach would result in more economical assembly?
Using the skilled worker:
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One worker, $33 per hour, 2.6 hours
o 1 * 33 * 2.6 = $85.80 per unit
Using the four less skilled workers:
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Four workers, $19 per hour each, 1 hour
o 4 * 19 * 1 = $76 per unit
The team of less skilled workers is $9.8 cheaper per unit than using the skilled worker. This
means if the firm wants to assemble 1000 units, the more economical assembly would be
using the 4 less skilled workers as they’d save $9800.