(Q23-24: IPS- Click on Excel File) Industrial Packaging Solutions (IPS) is a manufacturer of corrugated fiberboard shipping boxes used by companies across the United States. It sells to wholesalers, who in turn sell to resellers or end-user customers. Final products are consolidated on standard shipping pallets of uniform dimensions and weight. Because of this, the cost to ship a pallet to a single destination is the same regardless of the type of box loaded on the pallet. The standard unit for sales and operations planning at IPS is a pallet load.

After recently opening a new factory to satisfy growing demand for its products, IPS is concerned about allocating demand from its customers to the facilities in its production network. It wants to do so in a way that minimizes the total cost of shipping final products to the wholesalers.

It currently has three factories that service a network of six major wholesalers. Relevant data for the next year are shown in the table below.

Factory Location	Production Capacity (Pallets x 1,000)	Wholesaler Location	Demand (Pallets x 1,000)
Philadelphia	35	Portland	8.5
Chicago	40	Los Angeles	19.6
Seattle	35	Kansas City	10.3
		Minneapolis	8.8
		Indiana	11.8
		Atlanta	12.6
		Orlando	17.2
		New York	9.0

Based on contracts with its transportation suppliers, IPS is confident that the following transportation rates will be valid over the next year. Rates provided are to transport one pallet of product. There is no quantity discount given for volume shipments.

FROM/TO	Destination City and Transportation Rates
	Portland	Los Angeles	Kansas City	Minneapolis	Indiana	Atlanta	Orlando	New York
Philadelphia	$33	$49	$45	$54	$56	$65	$70	$72
Chicago	$55	$69	$39	$28	$22	$45	$60	$55
Seattle	$75	$77	$68	$62	$43	$54	$35	$48

Use the transportation method of linear programming to develop a low-cost transportation plan for IPS for the upcoming year.