| dc.description.abstract | Tusker lager is produced by Kenya Breweries Ltd a wholly owned
subsidiary of East African Breweries Ltd. The company produces
six different brands of beer, namely; Tusker, City, Tusker
Export, White Cap, Pilsner and Guiness. Tusker lager the
item of interest in this thesis accounts for about 80% of
the total production of the six braThts.
Rising costs as a result of inflation have threatened the
company's profit performance for the last three years and in
the financial year ended June 30th 1975, the company 's
profits fell by over one million pounds or 26% compared to
the performance in the previous year. As far back as late
1974 the company has on several occasions used a trial and
error method to vary the quanti ties of the ingredients that
go into the manufacture of Tusker in order to find a mix
that will ninimize costs on these materials. Some of these
trials were successful in providing a beer of some acceptable
quality but the approach was rather slow in providing the best
pr cg r amme fer the company to adopt.
In this thesis the author makes an attempt to determine through
the use of a linear programming model, referred to as TULP in
the text, that optimal combination of the ingredients that go
into the manufacure of Tusker) a combination or mix that will
minimiz e costs and at the same time maintain the w ell known
quality and taste of the brand.
Some sensitivity analysis is done inorder to assess how the
suggested optimal combination would be affected by changes in
the prices of the ingredients as welI as the quantities used.
The results show that, due to quality requirements and other
company objectives the quantities cannot be varied very much
without affecting the optimal combination ; however , it is
found to be rather insensitive to changes in the prices of
the ingredients. And if the profitability position of the
firm has to be improved other strategies have to be
incorporated into the operating plan , Some of these
strategies are mentioned as recommendations in the
last chapter. | en |
