Michael W. answered • 07/24/14
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Hi Sam!
Here are some suggestions that might help.
1. The question asks you something about minimum cost. So, what is the equation for the daily operating cost for Tony's Pizzeria? The problem describes it, but doesn't exactly write it down for you. If you're going to come up with a minimum cost, we probably need that equation.
2. You are told that Tony's wants to produce 80 pizzas. Where do you plug that in?
3. In #1, you should now have an equation for cost, in terms of employees and ovens. In #2, you should now have an equation, also in terms of employees and ovens. So, we have cost, employees, and ovens. Can we eliminate one of those somehow?
4. If I ask you to minimize cost, how do you use calculus to do that?
I hope this gives you some ideas...and let us know if you get stuck again!
-- Michael
Michael W.
Sam,
They gave one equation in the problem that tells you how many pizzas they can produce based on the number of employees and the number of ovens. That's #2 in my list above.
But they describe the daily operating cost, right? The first sentence in the problem isn't an equation, but it describes an equation. Given that description, you shooooould be able to write an equation for the cost:
C = some expression in terms of employees and ovens
If you want to find the minimum cost, and you have an expression for C, that's something that calculus should be able to do for you. The problem is you can only have one variable in the expression, and you probably have two. Employees and Ovens. So, that's an issue, but that's where the second equation comes into play. Can you use the second equation (about the number of pizzas) to help eliminate one of the variables, so you can minimize C in terms of only one variable?
-- Michael
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07/24/14
Sam P.
07/24/14