American University in Cairo

Mechanical Engineering Department

Engineering Operations Research MENG 4440
Spring 2021- Individual Project
Due Date: 1 week before the final exam

Salah Alagha
Nada Elbannany
Youssef Abohammar
In its battle to combat the spread of the virus, a humanitarian agency decided
to improve delivery process through intervention at the last mile delivery
process. Before the pandemic, the agency used to have two large warehouses
that have sufficient capacity to supply all need packages. Warehouse 1
contains 45% of the total demand while warehouse 2 can handle 55%( These
percentages apply to all packages). Aid recipients used to use to visit their
assigned warehouse and pick their rations. After the pandemic, the locations
and size of these two warehouses are no longer conducive to efficient and
safe operations mainly due to frequent lockdowns in addition to safety
issues. These safety issues arise from the fact that a large number of people
show up at the warehouses simultaneously. The agency made a lot of effort
to regulate the scheduling process, yet, crowdedness could not be avoided in
most of the time and that could be attributed to the fact that most of aid
recipients were so poor that they cannot afford renting transportation means
on their own. In the past, they used to visit the warehouses with other
recipients to save part of the transportation costs in addition to the fact that
transportation is not available all the time. Management decided that it
would not be able to tolerate these safety issues (exposing its staff in
addition to aid recipients to infection risks) regardless of the complexity of
the scheduling process it uses. The agency currently distributes four types of
packages. The type of package that a beneficiary is given depends on
number of dependents, their ages, health conditions and other factors.
The agency decided to have many small Distribution Centers (DCs) the
location of which should be within one kilometer from the population areas
that the agency serves. Currently, the agency serves 10 areas. The distances
between the centroids of the 10 areas are given in Table (1)

Table (1) Distances between the areas in (meters)* Numbers are factitious
Area 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 2000 890 990 1280 1360 113 670 1230 1350
0
2 1900 980 1450 920 124 1430 2100 1450
0
3 2000 800 1020 120 1330 980 1030
0
4 980 800 134 2000 1600 2010
0
5 1230 890 1230 1400 970
6 880 750 2020 1050
7 660 2010 760
8 890 700
9 890
10

More information about these areas, types and monthly number of packages
needed at each area are given in Table (2).
Table (2) Monthly number of packages needed by each area.
Area Population Package Package2 Package Package4
1 3
1 4000 20 35 17 40
2 5070 16 48 19 35
3 5303 17 38 20 12
4 9000 50 36 23 55
5 2700 23 40 21 36
6 3400 29 46 25 46
7 6000 40 46 28 50
8 7300 41 39 26 50
9 11200 49 50 24 56
10 8300 46 47 27 40

More data about the packages volumes, weights, transporting cost per
kilometer is given in Table (3)
Table (3):Volumes, weights and transporting cost of each
package/kilometer
Package Volume Weight Cost of
type (m3) (Kgs) transportation
per kilometer
$
1 0.2 20 5
2 2 30 7
3 0.8 35 8
4 1.2 40 10

In transporting packages from the main warehouses to the served areas, the
agency currently has four types of the trucks. Information about these trucks
and their capacities are given in Table (4). The cost of transporting the
different types of packages using any of the truck types depends on the
package type and the transportation distances only as shown in Table (3)

Table (4). Truck types and capacities

Truck type Volume Weight Number
available (Kgs)
(m3)
1 100 2000 10
2 50 1500 9
3 20 1000 8
4 45 800 10

Distance in meters between main warehouses and candidate areas are given
in Table (5)

Table (5). Distances between main warehouses and candidate areas

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 3500 6000 4600 6500 8500 5000 4500 8900 10000 7500
2 2000 4000 3800 7500 10000 7200 6500 4800 3900 8700

A- As an independent consultant, you were assigned the task to help the

agency in solving the problem. More specifically, the Terms of
References (TOR) listed the following as outputs:
1- A table showing the minimum number and location of each of the
potential distribution centers ( at which of the 10 areas)
2- The number of units of each package to each DC from each
warehouses
3- What is the minimum total cost?

So, formulate the problem as an integer programming problem and solve

using LINDO or any software of your choice to answer the above questions.
Clearly define the variables first.

B- Based on the results, assume that you were asked to suggest the
volumes and the weights of new trucks, how would you deal with
such a problem?. Explain your methodology. No need for formulation.
C- If management is contemplating the use of Multi Criteria Decision
Making Methods to study the problem
1- What criteria would you consider?
2- How you would obtain the importance of the criteria?
3- How would the objective function look like? (Use goal
programming)

Good luck