Please see the attached file.

There are five common types of operations management problems that can be successfully addressed with linear progression. One of those operation management problems is transportation.

1) What sort of firm has transportation as an operations management problem?
Any firm that has its manufacturing facilities located at various locations and also has customers located in various places, thus have various storage facilities and the manufacturer has to supply the goods to these places. The demand at different locations is different; the production capacity is also different at different facilities. This decision also involves the costs associated with each source to destination.

The example of this type of firm is A refrigerator manufacturing firm, a Computer manufacturing firm or for that matter, any firm with multiple manufacturing facilities and multiple customer bases.

2) How does such a firm solve its transportation problems with the use of linear programming?
Transportation problems can be solved using one of the following methods:
1. Simplex Method
2. Transportation method specially developed to solve transportation problems.
3. Computer programs designed to solve the transportation problem. Example: Excel solver, QM, POM, LINDO etc.