established in Section II and now must be used in the assembly model 

 to determine the optimum use of resources to accomplish particular 

 requirements in moving poultry. 



The organizing of the assembly operation involves the following: 



(1) The poultry located at any impound point will be loaded by a 

 crew composed of a truck driver, a foreman, and a number of pickup 

 laborers. This crew ranges from three to ten men. 



( 2 1 The trucks are scheduled in their arrival time at the farm 

 so no truck has to wait to be loaded. 



( 3 I The foreman and his pickup labor remain at a given impound 

 point until all the poultry located there is loaded out. The crew then 

 proceeds to the impound point in another band, or back to the plant. 



(4) All personnel begin and end their work day at the processing 

 plant, but the work day cannot exceed ten hours. 



(5 I Trucks make as many round trips as possible. 



The least-cost set of resources (trucks and men) for each firm size 

 at each density level was determined from an assemlily matrix. Such an 

 assembly matrix is shown schematically for Firm F in Figure 3. The 

 upper left to lower right diagonal of the matrix handles the various 

 quantities of resources required to assemble poultry from each supply 

 band, when supply bands are taken separately. The upper right-hand 

 portion of the matrix handles the resources required when considering 

 comljining assembly in two or more supply bands. Such combining be- 

 comes more economical as firms become larger and as production density 

 becomes higher. Thi'ougb this procedure it is possible to handle effects 

 of firm size simultaneously with effects of distance. The lower left-hand 

 portion of the matrix is not applicable. 



1. Resources Required for Supply Bands 



The steps, restrictions, and assumptions used to determine the least- 

 cost set of resources required for each element along the diagonal of the 

 matrix are: 



(1) Each production density situation was considered separately. 



(2 I The set of resources will be made up of one or more comple- 

 ments of men and truck-loads of poultry. 



(3) The trucks used in the analysis have 190 and 220 crate capa- 

 city. Each size of truck was tested for its impact on cost for each load 

 of poultry. 



( 4 I Labor time, truck size, truck numbers, and shrinkage are all 

 substitutes for each other. As will be explained presently, substitution 

 among them was tested in several ways to achieve the least-cost comljina- 

 tion of all four. 



(5) The least-cost set of resources (men and trucks) to assemble 

 birds from the impound point in each supply band taken separately is 

 first of all determined. At this stage in the procedure, firms as such are 

 not being considered. That is, the elements on the diagonal in the as- 



15 



