- (P5-18) A food distribution company ships fresh spinach from its four packing plants to large East-Coast cities. The shipping costs per crate and the supply and demand are shown in the table below.
- Formulate a model that will permit the company to meet its demand at the lowest possible cost.
- The company wishes to spread out the source for each of its markets to the maximum extent possible. To accomplish this, it will accept a 5% increase in its total transportation cost from part (a). What is the new transportation plan, and what is the new cost?
| MARKETS | |||||
| Packing Plants | Atlanta | Boston | Charlestown | Dover | Supply |
| Eaglestown | $6.00 | $7.00 | $7.50 | $7.50 | 8,000 |
| Farrier | $5.50 | $5.50 | $4.00 | $7.00 | 10,000 |
| Guyton | $6.00 | $5.00 | $6.50 | $7.00 | 5,000 |
| Hayesville | $7.00 | $7.50 | $8.50 | $6.50 | 9,000 |
| Demand | 8,000 | 9,000 | 10,000 | 5,000 | |
- (P5-32) A security firm needs to connect alarm systems to the firm’s main control site from five potential trouble locations. Since the systems must be fail-safe, the cables must be run in special pipes. These pipes are very expensive but large enough to simultaneously handle five cables (the maximum that might be needed). Use the minimal-spanning tree model to find the minimum total length of pipes needed to connect the locations shown in Figure 5.22. Node 6 represents the main control site.
