A Decision Rule for Producing Christmas Greeting Cards

Christmas greeting cards are produced in batches, with several designs printed on a sheet simultaneously. The number of cards printed for a design is constrained to be an integer multiple of the number of sheets printed for the set of plates containing the design. The demand for the cards is met by two production runs: a limited number is produced in the first run, primarily as samples for display at the pre-Christmas shows; at the time of initiating the second production run, a more realistic estimate of the demand for each design is available and a significant increase in profits can be obtained by producing the cards economically. This paper presents a simple deterministic model for improving a company's profit in the Christmas-greeting-card trade.