3. The Gophers Stadium is revamping its concession strategy following the signing
of their new international superstar player. As the inventory manager, you need to
determine how many international specialty food kits (for Takoyaki, a fried octopus
street food ball) to order and store for game days. You anticipate demand of 600
kits per month, normally distributed with a standard deviation of 150 kits.
You decide to purchase from GlobalFresh, a specialized international food supplier.
It takes 10 days to receive orders from overseas. Each international shipment
costs $15, regardless of order size. Any investment in inventory incurs an annual
25% financing fee. Because placing large bulk orders requires spending a large
amount of capital, you need to finance the capital, so you end up paying the
financing fees per kit of inventory per year.
Each kit costs $4 to procure. You can assume that due to increased popularity, the
stadium holds games 30 working days/month and 360 days/year.
a) (3 points) How many specialty food kits should you include in each order?
b) (6 points) If you want to be sure you run out less than 25% of the time, when
should you place orders (i.e., your re-order point)?
c) (4 points) What is your annual inventory cost?
d) (4 points) GlobalFresh offers to rush all future orders, reducing lead time to 3
days for an annual $5 fee. Should you take the offer? Explain.