American company, New-trition, Inc. produces a novelty organic product "Mac and Chia". This new taste sensation takes traditional macaroni and cheese to a new level of delicious nutrition, incorporating chia seeds into whole grain, organic, non-GMO wheat flour pasta and wholesome, low-fat cheese from pasture fed, free range goats. The product is fully, robotically mixed and packaged, into hermetically sealed single serving containers, featuring 12 containers per case, assuring a COVID free, sanitarily controlled environment, at their headquarters in Fond du lac, Wisconsin. The company sells the packaged product cases to grocery brokers for $20.00, each, with a 5% discount for orders of 100 cases or more; virtually every broker takes the discount. The variable costs of producing the product cases are low, totaling only $7.00 each for the cased 12 single serving containers, and shrink wrapped pallets, wages of the robot engineers, and the dock workers loading the distributor's trucks.With its catchy marketing jingle, "Mamma Mia, that's a tasty Mac and Chia", and its associated revolutionary taste sensation, the product has become a best seller. The production manager must plan to expand the capacity of the plant to turn out more cases. Each Robot can make a case in fifteen minutes, which includes inserting the 12 single serving containers in the cardboard casing. Cases are then stacked and shrink wrapped by the dock workers.At present, the Company has four robots; each robot costs $80,000 and has a service life of five years. The Company operates two eight-hour shifts per day, 50 weeks per year, and the robots require servicing and adjustments for one hour every day. New robots can be purchased for $85,000. They also have a service life of five years and require one hour of servicing, but they can assemble a case in ten minutes. Because of the savings in case production, the variable cost will drop to $6.00 per case. Consider the annual total capacity of the current robots, given the information provided about working hours and case production data. Consider the annual total capacity of the new robots available, given the information provided about working hours and production data. How many more cases per year can be produced by the new robots, over the current ones? (Hint: No breakeven formulas required to solve this, and robots operate every day of the week)
a. 22,400
b. 33,600
c. 11,200
d. 8,000
e. Not enough data provided