Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) provides government services and information technology support. Suppose 500 employees work at SAIC’s Charleston branch in South Carolina and were surveyed about the nature of their work. Suppose further that the 350 employees who work in technology development
represent 16 fewer than three times the number of
employees who are deployed at customer sites.
Write and solve an equation to determine how many employees work at customer sites.
Let's denote the number of employees who work at customer sites as x. According to the problem, the number of employees who work in technology development is 16 fewer than three times the number of employees who work at customer sites. Thus, we can represent the number of technology development employees as 3x - 16.
According to the information provided, the number of employees in technology development is 350. We can now set up the equation:
3x - 16 = 350
Now, to solve for x, we need to isolate the variable:
3x = 350 + 16
3x = 366
Next, divide both sides by 3 to solve for x:
x = 366 / 3
x = 122
Therefore, there are 122 employees who work at customer sites.