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General Ford has two plants, two warehouses, and three customers. The locations

ID: 3121755 • Letter: G

Question

General Ford has two plants, two warehouses, and three customers. The locations of these are as follows:

            Plants: Detroit and Atlanta

            Warehouses: Denver and New York

            Customers: Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia

Cars are produced at plants, then shipped to warehouses, and finally shipped to customers. Detroit can produce 150 cars per week, and Atlanta can produce 100 cars per week. Los Angeles requires 80 cars per week; Chicago, 70; and Philadelphia, 60. It costs $10,000 to produce a car at each plant, and the cost of shipping a car between two cities is given in Table 62. Determine how to meet General Ford’s weekly demands at minimum cost.

Table 62

To ($)

From

Denver

New York

Detroit

1253

637

Atlanta

1398

841

To ($)

From

Los Angeles

Chicago

Philadelphia

Denver

1059

996

1691

New York

2786

802

100

To ($)

From

Denver

New York

Detroit

1253

637

Atlanta

1398

841

Explanation / Answer

Understanding the Decision variables first :

Let DD represent cars shipped from Detroit to Denver.

Let DN represent cars shipped from Detroit to NY.

Let AD represent cars shipped from Atlanta to Denver.

Let AN represent cars shipped from Atlanta to NY.

Similarly we have DL,DC,DP and NL,NC,NP to represent shipping from warehouses to the customer.

We have the Objective function :Minimize Cost Z =

1253*DD+637*DN+1398*AD+841*AN+1059*DL+996*DC+1691*DP+2786*NL+802*NC+100*NP +10000*(DD+DN+AD+AN).

This contains both Shipping and Production costs !

Subject to the constraints that determine plant capacity.

DD+DN<=150 : Detroit Plant Capacity

AD+AN<=100 : Atlanta Plant Capacity

Requirement Constraints from LA,Chicago and Philly:

LA:80 ; DL+NL = 80

Chicago:70 ; DC+NC=70

Philly:60 ; DP+NP = 60

So we have the Objective function to be minimized and subject to 5 contraints in total along with non negativity constraints on the variables.We can use Excel Solver or LiPS easily to get the solution.

The Question only asks us to set-up the problem and not actually solve it.So I will stop with the formulation.