Case Problem Stateline Shipping and Transport Company - Essay Example

Polychem has six sites that are available to pick waste of Stateline. Polychem then would like Stateline to transport the waste for disposal to any of the or one of the three sites. Stateline has to transport the waste to the site and incur costs for the same (Bernard, 2010). In order to do so, Rachel needs to see what the less costly shipping routes are. This is basically the transportation problem for the issue such as cost minimization. The problem face by the company is that it has six collection centers from where the company wishes to pick up the waste and transport it to the nearest three disposable centers which should be at a minimum cost.

The following below table summarizes the costs from the collection centers to the disposable sites. Since the company has the option to drop and load back at certain points i.e. plant or disposal center without any extra cost, we can find roots in this model too. It is considered to be cheap to drop and load back at intermediate places then shipping them directly. The company will enjoy the cost advantage by dropping the waste at a certain intermediate points as described in the below table. All such roots with the lowest cost are given in the following table.

Using the original problem the minimum cost of the company without using any intermediate comes out to be $2822. But by using some intermediate points the original problem was modified and solves once again to check the minimum cost. The results showed that by using intermediate points and the new model caused a reduction in the transportation costs. The cost was reduced to $2630. In order to achieve this company must follow the following transportation roots as described above. Waste from the Kingsport to duras should be transported to Macon first and then Macon to Duras.

Waste from the Macon to Los Canos should be carried to Selma first and then from Selma to Los Canos. Waste from Selma to White water should be carried to Columbus first and