Answer:
This is a problematic question. If we assume that all men have a “one-to-one” contribution to the product (piece of work). Then we could solve this intuitively with a simple ratio….
4 men : 8 days
8 men : 4 days → double the men is half the time which is 4 days
16 men : 2 days —-> and so double 8 men will complete the job in 2 days
Hence 16 men is required to complete the job. Since you already have 4 workers you will need 12 additional men.
But this is under the assumption that there is no diminishing margin of returns. If you don’t know what this means let me give you an example. Say we were making pasta for about 3 people. It would be nice if you had two people cooking. They could help each other prepare the ingredients (peel and chop) and one person could boil the pasta while the other cooks the sauce. Maybe it would be even faster with 3 the 3rd person could help clean. But sooner or later adding more chefs slows the process down rather than help it… If we’re just making pasta for 3 people we can’t have 10 or 20 chefs, we can’t fit them in the kitchen, we can’t pay them and it’s a problem to organise that many people.
