Cool Power Produces Air Conditioning Units for Large Commercial Properties

Cool Power produces air conditioning units for large commercial properties.Due to the low cost and efficiency of its products,the company has been growing from year to year.Also,due to seasonality in construction and weather conditions,production requirements vary from month to month.Cool Power currently has 10 fully trained employees working in manufacturing.Each trained employee can work 160 hours per month and is paid a monthly wage of $4000.New trainees can be hired at the beginning of any month.Due to their lack of initial skills and required training,a new trainee only provides 100 hours of useful labor in their first month,but are still paid a full monthly wage of $4000.Furthermore,because of required interviewing and training,there is a $2500 hiring cost for each employee hired.After one month,a trainee is considered fully trained.An employee can be fired at the beginning of any month,but must be paid two weeks of severance pay ($2000).Over the next 12 months,Cool Power forecasts the labor requirements shown in the table below.Since management anticipates higher requirements next year,Cool Power would like to end the year with at least 12 fully trained employees.How many trainees should be hired and/or workers fired in each month to meet the labor requirements at the minimum possible cost? Formulate and solve a linear programming spreadsheet model.