WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY / D605 OPTIMIZATION
Task 1: GL Organics
Inventory Optimization
Business Case Analysis
Scenario 3 | Multi-product inventory planning | October 2026
Decision objective: Select monthly ordering quantities for four perishable organic product categories that
minimize modeled purchasing and holding expenditure while respecting demand-coverage, budget, and
storage constraints.
Approach: Deterministic, single-period linear programming, with a formal feasibility check, endpoint
analysis, computational verification, and operational recommendations.
ANALYSIS SNAPSHOT RESULT
Four product categories 1,330 minimum units
Optimal modeled monthly cost $16,292.50
Budget / storage used 50.2% / 42.3%
Evidence basis. Business context, scenario label, and numerical parameters are drawn from the uploaded 13-page GL
Organics Task 1 report. The arithmetic and feasibility results in this analysis have been recomputed independently.
The publicly available WGU course description was checked; the current official Task 1 instructions and grading rubric
were not provided, so exact rubric equivalence cannot be confirmed.
WGU D605 | Task 1 | GL Organics inventory optimization 1
, Executive Summary
GL Organics manages four perishable organic-food categories sourced through a fragmented supplier
network. The operational decision is how much fruit, vegetable, dairy, and prepared-meal inventory to
purchase each month without exceeding available capital or storage, while covering a specified share of
planned demand. The analyzed business case supplies per-unit purchasing costs, monthly holding charges,
storage coefficients, minimum quantities, a $25,000 purchasing budget, and 2,000 cubic feet of storage
capacity.
A four-variable linear program gives an optimal ordering plan of 475 units of fruit, 380 of vegetables, 285 of
dairy, and 190 of prepared meals. Acquisition expenditure is $12,540.00, modeled holding charges are
$3,752.50, and the total modeled monthly cost is $16,292.50. The plan uses 845.5 cubic feet of capacity.
All four order-floor constraints bind. By contrast, the budget and warehouse limits both have slack.
The key managerial conclusion is narrower than a promise of cost savings: given the supplied positive cost
coefficients, the model minimizes expenditure by purchasing exactly the stated minimum quantities. An
annual savings estimate cannot be derived without a verified pre-optimization operating baseline; nor does
a 95% demand-coverage proxy prove that 95% of customer requests will actually be filled. To support a
genuine operating policy, GL Organics should validate demand, spoilage, lead times, service definitions,
and actual incumbent ordering costs before deployment.
Modeled resource utilization at the cost minimum
Purchasing budget 50.2%
Warehouse capacity 42.3%
Report structure and assessment correspondence
Section Content
A / A1 Business need and explanation of why optimization is appropriate
A2 / A3 Linearity assessment and classification of the problem
B / B1 Model, parameters, constraints, feasibility, and endpoint analysis
C Method recommendation, verified solution, and business interpretation
D Evidence, sources, and reproducibility documentation
The section labels track those contained in the supplied Task 1 document; they are not represented as a transcription of an official
current rubric.
WGU D605 | Task 1 | GL Organics inventory optimization 2
Task 1: GL Organics
Inventory Optimization
Business Case Analysis
Scenario 3 | Multi-product inventory planning | October 2026
Decision objective: Select monthly ordering quantities for four perishable organic product categories that
minimize modeled purchasing and holding expenditure while respecting demand-coverage, budget, and
storage constraints.
Approach: Deterministic, single-period linear programming, with a formal feasibility check, endpoint
analysis, computational verification, and operational recommendations.
ANALYSIS SNAPSHOT RESULT
Four product categories 1,330 minimum units
Optimal modeled monthly cost $16,292.50
Budget / storage used 50.2% / 42.3%
Evidence basis. Business context, scenario label, and numerical parameters are drawn from the uploaded 13-page GL
Organics Task 1 report. The arithmetic and feasibility results in this analysis have been recomputed independently.
The publicly available WGU course description was checked; the current official Task 1 instructions and grading rubric
were not provided, so exact rubric equivalence cannot be confirmed.
WGU D605 | Task 1 | GL Organics inventory optimization 1
, Executive Summary
GL Organics manages four perishable organic-food categories sourced through a fragmented supplier
network. The operational decision is how much fruit, vegetable, dairy, and prepared-meal inventory to
purchase each month without exceeding available capital or storage, while covering a specified share of
planned demand. The analyzed business case supplies per-unit purchasing costs, monthly holding charges,
storage coefficients, minimum quantities, a $25,000 purchasing budget, and 2,000 cubic feet of storage
capacity.
A four-variable linear program gives an optimal ordering plan of 475 units of fruit, 380 of vegetables, 285 of
dairy, and 190 of prepared meals. Acquisition expenditure is $12,540.00, modeled holding charges are
$3,752.50, and the total modeled monthly cost is $16,292.50. The plan uses 845.5 cubic feet of capacity.
All four order-floor constraints bind. By contrast, the budget and warehouse limits both have slack.
The key managerial conclusion is narrower than a promise of cost savings: given the supplied positive cost
coefficients, the model minimizes expenditure by purchasing exactly the stated minimum quantities. An
annual savings estimate cannot be derived without a verified pre-optimization operating baseline; nor does
a 95% demand-coverage proxy prove that 95% of customer requests will actually be filled. To support a
genuine operating policy, GL Organics should validate demand, spoilage, lead times, service definitions,
and actual incumbent ordering costs before deployment.
Modeled resource utilization at the cost minimum
Purchasing budget 50.2%
Warehouse capacity 42.3%
Report structure and assessment correspondence
Section Content
A / A1 Business need and explanation of why optimization is appropriate
A2 / A3 Linearity assessment and classification of the problem
B / B1 Model, parameters, constraints, feasibility, and endpoint analysis
C Method recommendation, verified solution, and business interpretation
D Evidence, sources, and reproducibility documentation
The section labels track those contained in the supplied Task 1 document; they are not represented as a transcription of an official
current rubric.
WGU D605 | Task 1 | GL Organics inventory optimization 2
