Transportation problem with plant closure and relocation of machines

This paper is interested in a food industrial group which produces large quantities of sugar and distributes it to warehouses and customers. The group should review its distribution policy, in particular, to optimize transportation costs and reduce losses caused by the current organization. In this paper, we propose an integer linear model to optimize the travel of full loaded trucks taking into account respect of the group’s peculiarities. We study a second integer linear model taking into account transportation and production costs and allowing the possibility of closing some plants. Finally, the last model aims to review the production capacity of each plant through a redeployment of its production lines.