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MCNF Practice Problem

The document outlines a logistics optimization problem for distributing plushies from a manufacturer to various warehouses and distribution centers. It specifies the shipping rules, costs, and capacity constraints for each warehouse and mode of transport. The goal is to minimize transportation costs while adhering to the given restrictions and fulfilling specific order requirements for air shipments.

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2 views2 pages

MCNF Practice Problem

The document outlines a logistics optimization problem for distributing plushies from a manufacturer to various warehouses and distribution centers. It specifies the shipping rules, costs, and capacity constraints for each warehouse and mode of transport. The goal is to minimize transportation costs while adhering to the given restrictions and fulfilling specific order requirements for air shipments.

Uploaded by

jcheng256
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

MCNF Practice Problem

February 19, 2026

1 Shipping Plushies (MCNF Practice Problems)


Suppose you are an optimization expert working for popular plushie manufacturer, Assemble-an-
Animal. You have been tasked with figuring out how to distribute plushies. You have a total of
160 orders, which you are shipping from the manufacturing site to four different warehouses in
Milwaukee, Paris, Sydney, and New Delhi. The plushies will then be shipped to three different
distribution centers in Amsterdam, London, and Beijing. Each warehouse can hold a maximum
number of orders (shown in table below). The plushies can either be flown to the distribution
centers or taken by train. Because of travel distance restrictions, your deliveries must abide by the
following rules:
• Milwaukee can only deliver to Amsterdam and London and only by air.
• Paris can deliver to Amsterdam and London by air or rail and Beijing by air.
• Sydney can only deliver to Beijing, and only by air.
• New Delhi can deliver to Beijing by rail, Amsterdam by rail or air, and London by air.
Costs of rail and air transport per order are in the table below.
The contract you have with the airline company requires that any single shipment contains no more
than 45 orders. The only restriction on rail transport is that no more than 60 orders can fit on a
single shipment.
In addition, to maintain good favor with your contracted airline, you must send at least 15 orders
by air to Beijing. 5 orders by air to Amsterdam, and 10 orders by air to London.

Warehous /
Distribution Beijing air Warehouse
Center Amsterdam air (rail) London air (rail) (rail) capacity
Milwaukee $12k (-) $11k (-) - (-) 45
Paris $12k ($10k) $14k ($12k) $20k (-) 50
Sydney - (-) - (-) $18k (-) 70
New Delhi $9k ($7k) $8k (-) - ($5k) 30

• Draw the network. How (if at all) do you need to modify the network to fit the structure of
the general MCNF problem?
• Build and solve a MCNF problem to determine how you should transport your 160 orders to
minimize the total transportation cost. You can use the code snippet below to initilize your
problem:

1
[1]: num_orders = 160 # total orders
w = [:M, :P, :S, :N] # warehouses
dc = [:A, :L, :B] # distribution centers
modes = [:air, :rail] # possible modes of transportation

max_w_cap = Dict(zip(w,[45,50,70,30])) # capacity of each warehouse

nodes = [] # fill in nodes


arcs = []; # fill in arcs. you might want to use tuples -- e.g., arc from node1␣
,→to node2: (:node1,:node2)

[ ]:

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