Reference no: EM131735362

The Northwoods General Store in Downtown sells a variety of outdoor clothing items and equipment and several food products at its modern but rustic-looking retail store. Its food products include salmon and maple syrup. Maple syrup is one of its most popular products. Maple syrup was one of the first products the store produced and sold, and it continues to do so. Setting up the syrup-making equipment to produce a batch of syrup costs 500 dollars. Storing the syrup for sales throughout the year is a tricky process because the syrup must be kept in a temperature-controlled facility. The annual cost of carrying a liter of syrup in the store is 5 dollars. Based on past sales data, the store has forecasted a demand of 30,000 litres of maple syrup for the coming year. The store can produce approximately 400 litres of syrup per day during the maple syrup season which runs from February through May. Because of the short season when the store can actually get sap out of trees, it must produce enough during this 4-month season to meet the demand for the whole year. Specifically, store management would like a production and inventory schedule that minimizes costs and indicates when during the year they need to start operating the syrup-making facility full time on a daily basis to meet the demand for the remaining 8 months. Develop a syrup production and inventory schedule for the Northwoods General Store. Estimate the total inventory costs for the syrup. State any assumptions used. Include a graph showing the way inventory builds up and consumed over a period of 12 months.