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Transportation Approach to Locating Plants in Relation to Potential Markets and Raw Material Sources
Author(s) -
Das Chandrasekhar,
Heragu Sunderesh
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
decision sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.238
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1540-5915
pISSN - 0011-7315
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5915.1988.tb00305.x
Subject(s) - procurement , raw material , production (economics) , a priori and a posteriori , computer science , distribution (mathematics) , balance (ability) , relation (database) , operations research , business , mathematics , economics , microeconomics , data mining , marketing , medicine , mathematical analysis , philosophy , chemistry , organic chemistry , epistemology , physical medicine and rehabilitation
ABSTRACT Proximity to the market place has been considered the most important locational factor in the literature so far. However, the growing need for frequent deliveries of materials in smaller lot sizes for just‐in‐time (JIT) manufacturing prefers plants closer to the raw materials sources. Locating plants for JIT manufacturing is, therefore, a problem of finding the right balance between the requirements of procurement and distribution. A comprehensive model is proposed in this paper to solve this problem. The model is solved by using the transportation algorithm and produces simultaneous decisions on procurement, production, and distribution. The model does not require plant sizes to be known a priori, but it allows upper limits to be placed on the size of each plant and raw material source. As such, optimal plant capacities along with the corresponding procurement and distribution quantities are all determined by the model solution.