12.7 Problems

1. A production facility molds plastic parts. Ideally these parts are made with new plastic pellets. However rejected plastic parts are ground into (regrind) pellets and mixed in with new plastic pellets. New plastic costs $1.00 per pound. If a part is discarded (not reground) the total cost of the material is lost. To regrind and dry scrap parts there is a cost of $0.10 per pound. The customer demands that the percentage of regrind cannot exceed 30%. Statistical data was used to find the following relationship between the percentage of regrind and the scrap rate. Write a program to determine the optimum quantity of regrind to minimize the cost per part.