5 TRANSPORTATION, TRANSSHIPMENT, ASSIGNMENT PROBLEMS

5 Transportation, Transshipment, Assignment

Problems

61. A company manufactures a product at all its three production centres A,

B and C, and ships them to its four distribution centres D, E, F and G.
Production capacities planned over the next three month planning period are
given in Table 1 below. The three month forecast of demand at the distribution
centres are shown in Table 2. Finally, the cost of shipping each unit from each
of the plant to each of the distribution centre is given in Table 3.

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

3-m Production Distribution 3-m Demand Distrib. Centre
Plant Capacity (units) Centre Forecast (units) Plant D E F G
A 5000 D 6000 A 3 2 7 6
B 6000 E 4000 B 7 5 2 3
C 2500 F 2000 C 2 5 4 5
G 1500

(a) For the company, objective is to determine the routes to be used and the
quantity to be shipped to each distribution centre that will minimize the
overall transportation cost.
(b) Write transportation tableau if the production capacity at C is 1500 in
place of 2500.
(c) What if the production capacity at C is 3500 in place of 2500 (and the
entire production at C is to be “shipped out”)?

62. A company has two production centres A and B. The produce from pro-
duction centres go to two regional warehouses C and D. From the regional
warehouses, the company supplies retail outlets at E, F , G and H. The fol-
lowing table summarizes the per unit transportation cost for each distribution
route, production capacity at each of the production centres and demand at
each retail outlet. The objective is to minimize transportation cost.

Transportation Cost (per unit), Production Capacity & Demand

Destination Production
Origin C D E F G H Capacity
A 2 3 600
B 3 1 400
C 2 6 3 6
D 4 4 6 5
Demand at retail outlet 200 150 350 300

63. A company is a small carpet manufacturer. The production capacity, demand,

production cost and inventory holding cost for the next four quarters are given
below. The objective is to determine the production schedule and inventory
levels that will minimize the total production and inventory cost for the four
quarters.

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Production Production Inventory

Quarter capacity Demand cost cost
(sq.yds.) (sq.yds.) ($/sq.yds.) ($/sq.yds.)
1 600 400 2 0.25
2 300 500 5 0.25
3 500 400 3 0.25
4 400 400 3 0.25

64. A market research organization has received three as-

signments from three clients. The estimated completion Project Client
Leader 1 2 3
time (in number of days) of each project by each project
A 10 15 9
leader (PL) is given in the adjacent table. The company B 9 18 5
has to assign the PL’s (agent) to the three projects so C 6 14 3
that each PL gets only one project and the total com-
pletion time of these three projects is minimum.
65. Power Supply: Three electric power plants with capacities 25, 40 and 30
million kilo Watt hour (MKWH) supply electricity to three cities. The max-
imum demands at these three cities are estimated at 30, 35 and 25 MKWH.
The price per MKWH at the three cities are given in the table below.

Price/MKWH ($)
City
Plant 1 2 3
1 600 700 400
2 320 300 350
3 500 480 450

In the month of August, the maximum demand increases by 20% in each city.
Extra demand can be met by electricity from another network at the rate of
$1000 per MKWH. But city 3 is not connected to this network. The utility
company wishes to determine the most economical plan for distribution of
electricity and purchase of additional energy.

(a) Formulate the problem as a transportation model.

(b) Determine an optimal plan for the utility company.
(c) Determine the cost of additional power purchased by each of the three
cities.
(d) What happens if there is a 10% transmission loss through the network?

66. Production-Inventory Control: Boralis manufactures backpacks for seri-

ous hikers. The demand for its product during the peak period of March to
June of each year is 100, 200, 180, and 300 units, respectively. The company
manufactures only during these months and using part-time labour. It is esti-
mated that Boralis can produce 50, 180, 280, and 270 units, in March through
June. A current month’s demand can be satisfied in one of the following ways:

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(a) Current month’s production at the cost of $40 per week,

(b) Surplus production at an earlier month at an additional holding cost of
$0.50 per pack per month, and
(c) Surplus production in a later month (back-ordering) at an additional
penalty cost of $2 per pack per month.

Boralis wishes to determine the optimal production schedule for the four
months.

67. Tool Sharpening: Arkansas Pacific operates a saw mill that produces boards
from different types of lumber. Depending on the type of wood being milled,
the demand for sharp blades varies from day-to-day according to the following
1-week (7-days) data:

Day Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

Demand (blades) 24 12 14 20 18 14 22

The mill can satisfy the daily demand in four ways:

(a) New blades at the cost of $12 a piece.

(b) Overnight sharpening service for $6 a blade.
(c) One-day sharpening service for $5 a blade.
(d) Two-day sharpening service for $3 a blade.

The company wants to satisfy demand of blades at minimum cost. Formulate.

68. Gurgaon Car Rental Company has six lots in Gurgaon, and it wants to have a
certain number of cars available at each lot at beginning of each day for local
rental. The agency would like a model it could quickly solve at the end of
each day that would tell it how to redistribute the cars among the six lots in
the minimum total time. Required travel times (in minutes) between lots are
given in Table 1 below. Table 2 shows the number of available cars at each
lot at end of a particular day, along with the number of desired cars the next
morning. Determine the optimal reallocation schedule.

Table 1 Table 2
To Lot (min.)
From Lot 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lot (Cars) Available Desired
1 - 12 17 18 10 20 1 37 30
2 14 - 10 19 16 15 2 20 25
3 14 10 - 12 8 9 3 14 20
4 8 16 14 - 12 15 4 26 40
5 11 21 16 18 - 10 5 40 30
6 24 12 9 17 15 - 6 28 20

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