Economies of scale in Tennessee pork slaughtering plants

The general purpose of this study is to estimate the effect of increasing scale of operation and varying rates of plant operations on costs in meat packing operations in Tennessee. Emphasis is given to pork processing operations. The aim is to develop information that can be used by individual firms in the industry to evaluate the efficiency of current and future operations. More specifically, the objectives are:

1. To design a set of model plants of varying size suitable to Tennessee conditions.

2. To estimate the physical input requirements for each model plant.

3. To determine appropriate cost rates for these inputs.

4. To show how costs per unit of output are affected by varying the rates at which given plants are operated.

5. To show how costs per unit of output are affected by varying the size of the plants.