operations strategy

Ellisson Seafood Company ships fresh seafood to customers in the local area. The logistics manager has developed 3 alternatives to ship the seafood.

Part A

#1 Each time a shipment is ready, call a common carrier. While there is no fixed costs the variable cost per shipment is $750.

#2 Enter into a contract with a common carrier. While the variable cost would be $300 per shipment, the fixed cost would be $5,000 per year.

#3 Lease their own refrigerated trucks. The fixed cost would be $21,000 per year and the variable costs would be $50 per shipment.

Now Ellisson does not know what the number of shipment will be per year. But a review of past years history provided the following information:

Part B

Ellisson Seafood does not know how many shipments there will be per year. However an analysis of the previous years’ data revealed the following:

Question: Given the costs and probability, which option should Ellisson select?

A payout table and a decision tree are required for this assignment.

Hint: Decision tree has 3 main branches each with 3 branches of their own. The payout table will have 9 columns; Carrier options, # of shipments, cost per shipment, fixed annual cost, per shipment cost total per year, combined total costs, % probability, decision cost and final weighted costs.