Question

cleaning agency operates five crews with three workers per crew. different crews clean different number of homes per week and spend a differing amount of hours. all the homes cleaned are about the same size. the manager of rcvj is trying to evaluate the productivity of each of the crews. the following data have been collected over the past week.

Answer 1

Assign tasks based on relative speed to maximize free time; consider trade-related analogy of firms choosing between labor-intensive or automated production based on costs.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question involves determining the optimal assignment of cleaning tasks among roommates to maximize overall free time. If you are 70% faster at doing dishes and 10% faster at vacuuming, the ideal strategy would be to take on the task at which you're considerably more efficient—dishes—in order to free up more overall time for everyone.

While it might seem like an individual being faster would always be beneficial, it can lead to problems such as an imbalance in workload or perceptions of unfairness among roommates.

A trade-related analogy to this situation is a company deciding which production technology to use. Just as you would allocate cleaning tasks based on efficiency, a company will choose the production method that minimizes costs for the same output.

If labor is cheaper than machines, they'll use a labor-intensive method; if machines are cheaper, they'll automate more of the process. This is akin to you doing more work on dishes because it is 'cheaper' in terms of time spent.