Determination of the Best Mean Contents for a<i>Canning Problem</i>

Abstract

This paper deals with a canning problem. Consider the contents of a can to be a normally distributed random variable with a known variance and a mean that is set by the canner. An overfilled can is sold in the regular market for a fixed price; an underweight can is emptied and refilled at the expense of a reprocessing cost. A simple linear expression is presented that gives the economically optimum setting for the process mean.