Minimizing the cost of transportation of products - generic model a case study for Surgipharm Limited

Abstract

Transportation is an area in which a lot of research has been carried out ranging from the road and railway networks to the transportation of goods and people in urban and rural areas. Mathematical models have been developed with the aim of reducing the cost of resources used in the transportation of products from their source of production to the demand destinations. Oil companies have invested in this development in the transportation of their oil products. This research work has been carried out with a case study for Surgipharm Limited to model the transportation business of the fIrm and give recommendations on the ways to reduce the transportation cost. The demand and supply of the products as well as the various modes available for the transportation are presented in this work. The information obtained has been used in developing a computer program that provides solutions for the distribution of the products using minimum resources. Although programs already exists for computing the minimum allocation costs, some programming has been carried out together with using spreadsheets to compute the shadow costs. The program design, program development and documentation therefore form part of the work undertaken and the associated deliverables are' included in the report as attachments in the appendices. The program listings are also included in this report. This same approach can be applied to more distribution companies with only a change in the parametersO.