Jane’s Teddy Bears from Manchester are selling stuffed toys all around the world. At the moment, the market in Brazil is expanding and Jane is producing teddy bears as fast as she can to meet demands. The reason for the success is that Jane have launched a product line with teddy bears themed after football teams, and even individual players, something that really resonates with the Brazilian market. Jane is now in the process of shipping 35 pallets of products in time for the national football playoffs. Each pallet contains 90 teddy bears. Each bear is packaged in a box with the dimensions 20 x 25 x 35 cm and each box weighs 450 grams. An empty pallet weighs 23 kg. A 20 ft container loads 12 pallets. A 40 ft container loads 25 pallets. Jane has two main options, lease containers or let a forwarder handle the entire transport. 20ft container 40ft container Capacity, pallets 12 25 Rent, $ 200 300 Transport port-port, $ 600 800 Haulage (both ends), $ 50 70 If a forwarder manages the transport, Jane pays $155 per tonne (1 tonne = 1000 kg). However, the forwarder applies a cutoff density at 270 kg/m3, meaning that goods below that density pays as if they weighed 270 kg/m3. What should Jane do? What is the best alternative? • Lease 3 x 20ft containers? • Lease 2 x 40ft containers? • Lease 1 x 20ft + 1 x 40ft containers? • Use forwarder? Calculate the combined transport cost for the different alternatives!

The first step is to calculate the total weight and volume of the teddy bears and packaging. Each bear weighs 450 grams and there are 90 bears in each pallet, so the weight of each pallet is 90 * 450 grams = 40.5 kg. Adding the weight of the empty pallet (23 kg), the total weight of each pallet is 40.5 kg + 23 kg = 63.5 kg.

Next, we need to calculate the volume of each pallet. The dimensions of each box are given as 20 x 25 x 35 cm. Multiplying these dimensions together, we get the volume of each box as 20 cm * 25 cm * 35 cm = 17,500 cm^3.

Since there are 90 boxes on each pallet, the total volume of each pallet is 17,500 cm^3 * 90 = 1,575,000 cm^3 or 1.575 m^3. So, the combined volume of 35 pallets is 1.575 m^3 * 35 = 55.125 m^3.

With this information, we can now calculate the transport cost for the different alternatives:

Lease 3 x 20ft containers: 3 * $200 (rent) + $600 (port-port transport) + 3 * $50 (haulage) = $1,250
Lease 2 x 40ft containers: 2 * $300 (rent) + $800 (port-port transport) + 2 * $70 (haulage) = $1,840
Lease 1 x 20ft + 1 x 40ft containers: $200 (rent) + $300 (rent) + $600 (port-port transport) + $800 (port-port transport) + $50 (haulage) + $70 (haulage) = $2,020
Use forwarder: $155 (per tonne) * (63.5 kg * 35 pallets) / 1000 kg = $345.2 (since the cutoff density is 270 kg/m^3, goods below that density are assumed to weigh 270 kg/m^3)

Based on these calculations, the best alternative for Jane would be to lease 3 x 20ft containers, as it has the lowest combined transport cost of $1,250.