Georgian Ambience Ltd. makes fine colonial reproduction furniture. Upholstered furniture is one of its major product lines and the bottleneck on this production line is time in the upholstery shop. Upholstering is a craft that takes years of experience to master and the demand for upholstered furniture far exceeds the company's capacity in the upholstering shop. Information concerning three of the company's upholstered chairs appears below:
Required:
1. More time could be made available in the upholstery shop by asking the employees who work in this shop to work overtime. Assuming that this extra time would be used to produce Leather Library Chairs, up to how much should the company be willing to pay per hour to keep the upholstery shop open after normal working hours?
2. A small nearby upholstering company has offered to upholster furniture for Georgian Ambience at a fixed charge of $45 per hour. The management of Georgian Ambience is confident that this upholstering company's work is high quality and their craftsmen should be able to work about as quickly as Georgian Ambience's own craftsmen on the simpler upholstering jobs such as the Chippendale Fabric Armchair. Should management accept this offer?Explain.