The Rugger Corporation is a Seattle-based R&D company that recently developed a new type of fiber substrate that is waterproof and resists dirt. Several carpet manufacturers in northeast Georgia want to use Rugger as their sole supplier for this new fiber. The locations of the carpet manufacturers are summarized in the following table.

Rugger expects to make 130, 75, 90, and 80 deliveries to the carpet producers in Dalton, Rome, Canton, and Kennesaw, respectively. The company wants to build its new plant in the location that would minimize the annual shipping miles. However, Rugger also wants to be within 50 miles of each of the new customers so that it will be easy to provide on-site technical support for any production problems that may occur.
a. Formulate an NLP model for this problem.
b. Implement your model in a spreadsheet and solve it.
c. What is the optimal location for the new plant? How many annual shipping miles are associated with this solution?
d. Suppose that the company wants to identify the location that minimizes the average distance to each of its customers. Where is this location and how many annual shipping miles would Rugger incur if the new plant locates there?
e. Suppose the company wants to identify the location that minimizes maximum distance to any of its customers. Where is this location and how many annual shipping miles would Rugger incur if the new plant locatesthere?

Transcribed Image Text:

Carpet Mill Locations X-Coordinate Y-Coordinate Dalton Rome Canton Kennesaw 43 28 36 4 51 19