Zeller Company estimates that 2017 sales will be $40,000 in quarter 1, $48,000 in quarter 2, and $58,000 in quarter 3. Cost of goods sold is 50% of sales. Management desires to have ending finished goods inventory equal to 10% of the next quarter’s expected cost of goods sold. Prepare a merchandise purchases budget by quarter for the first 6 months of 2017.

1. what are the unique operational challenges to delivering fresh meals? 2. why is speed of delivery so important for delivered meals? what variety of options contribute to this performance metric? 3. how could operations management concepts be utilized to improve the performance of freshly? 4. what are your typical product delivery times? what would be required to speed these up? 5. what are your delivery batch quantities? how could you reduce batch size and reduce delivery cost simultaneously using operations management concepts?