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.

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.

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.
b. Comment briefly on your solution. Beyond the obvious, does your proposed solution have any other implications forSP?

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MAXIMUM CAPACITY (x 100,000 LBS.) PROD CoSTS PER 1,000 LBS.) PLANT Philadelphia Atlanta St. Louis Salt Lake City 7.5 9.0 12.0 10.3 $325.00 $275.00 $305.00 $250.00 TRANSPORT Cosrs PER 1,000 LBS. FROM TO NYC BIRMINGHAM TERRE HAUTE DALLAS SFOKANE SAN DIEGO Philadelphia Atlanta St. Louis Salt Lake City 72 $45 $55 $57 $52 S42 S60 S71 $56 $58 $50 $67 S62 $59 $54 $57 $79 $e0 $65 $52 $e5 $82 S70 S60 Total Demand 525 415 925 600 325 400 (x 1,000 lbs.)