A Trucking company has just purchased 30 additional trucks for each of three warehouses (Charlotte, Memphis and Louisville) to ship merchandise to terminals in St Louis, Atlanta and New York. The maximum additional capacity at each terminal is 40, 60 and 50 truckloads per week. Any warehouse can complete 2 trips per week to the St Louis and Atlanta terminals, but only one trip per week to NY.
The average profits/truckload for shipments from warehouses to terminal are given below
Warehouse St. Louis Atlanta New York
Charlotte 1800 2100 1600
Memphis 1000 700 900
Louisville 1400 800 2200
How many trucks should be assigned to each route to maximize total profit?
St. Louis can absorb an additional 20 truckloads per week at a reduction in unit profit of $300/truckload. Should they plan on this? Why or Why not?
Would it make sense to use another allocation of trucks than giving each warehouse 30 trucks? If so, what is the most profitable allocation?