Question

Sycamore Plastics (SP) is a manufacturer of polyethylene plastic pellets used as a raw material by manufacturers of plastic goods around the U.S. SP currently operates four manufacturing centers in Philadelphia, PA; Atlanta, GA; St. Louis, MO; and Salt Lake City, UT. The plants have different capacities and production costs as indicated in the table below.

PLANT	MAXIMUM CAPACITY (× 100,000 LBS.)	PROD. COST (PER 1,000 LBS.)
Philadelphia	8.0	$321.00
Atlanta	9.2	$271.00
St. Louis	12.1	$301.00
Salt Lake City	10.4	$246.00

     SP currently has six contract customers located in New York City; Birmingham, AL; Terre Haute, IN; Dallas, TX; Spokane, WA; and San Diego, CA. Transportation costs between the plants and various customers, as well as contracted demand from each customer, are shown in the table below.

	TRANSPORT COSTS PER 1,000 LBS.
FROM/TO	NYC	BIRMINGHAM	TERRE HAUTE	DALLAS	SPOKANE	SAN DIEGO
Philadelphia	$46	$53	$57	$63	$73	$84
Atlanta	56	43	59	60	75	81
St. Louis	58	61	51	55	60	69
Salt Lake City	73	72	68	58	53	59
Total Demand (× 1,000 lbs.)	524	414	924	599	351	399

a. Create a solver model and find the optimal solution to help SP develop a distribution plan that will minimize costs to supply the customers’ demand. (Enter your answers in terms of cost per 1,000 lbs and shipment quantities per 1,000 lbs. Round your answers to the nearest whole number.)

	CombinedCosts Per 1,000 lbs.
From/To	NYC	Birmingham	Terre Haute	Dallas	Spokane	San Diego
Philadelphia	$	$	$	$	$	$
Atlanta
St. Louis
Salt Lake City

	Solution (× 1,000 lbs.)
From/To	NYC	Birmingham	Terre Haute	Dallas	Spokane	San Diego
Philadelphia
Atlanta
St. Louis
Salt Lake City
Received

	Total Costs
From/To	NYC	Birmingham	Terre Haute	Dallas	Spokane	San Diego
Philadelphia	$	$	$	$	$	$
Atlanta
St. Louis
Salt Lake City
Total cost						$

Answer 1

Prepare an excel spreadsheet using the given values.

Formulas used in the spreadsheet are shown as below.

Solver window-

Final output.

Hence, the total minimum cost of the plan is $1,052,465.