Optimization Models

The use of optimization models to suggest vehicle routes and the location of warehouses for a distributor of fine papers.

The client, with four warehouses in Ontario and Quebec, distributes about 10,000 stock-keeping units to several thousand small or medium sized customers in the printing and graphic arts industries. The firm described its problem as "a shortage of transportation capacity." More trucks would be needed because of an anticipated increase in sales. Vehicles on the current routes were already loaded to capacity.

Things are not always as they seem, however. The pattern of shipments to the warehouses was dictated by the firm's inventory policy. WATMIMS researchers thus suggested an alternative approach to the management of stocks and the re-ordering of those items. That, in turn, lessened the current strain on the transportation system.