An airline company as a ticket operations manager at an airport. Your unit is responsible for issuing boarding passes to customers every day. Currently you employ customer service representatives (CSR) and electronic ticketing machines (ETM) to meet the demands of customers. Each CSR is paid wages and fringe benefits of $150/day. It also costs you $50 a day to lease each machine (price includes installation, software support, and servicing). The table below contains the contributions of CSRs and ETMs in terms of the number of customers served.
CSR ETM
Number of Workers Number Customers Served Number of Machines Number of Customers Served
0
1 0
1400 0
1 0
334
2 2400 2 584
3 3200 3 684
4 3800 4 764
5
6 4100
4260
5
6 824
874
If you have a total budget of $900 per day, how should you allocate this budget (i.e., what is the number of CSRs and ETMs you should hire) in order to maximize number of customers served? Apply marginal analysis when answering this question