Bindley Corporation has a one-year contract to supply motors for all washing machines produced by Rinso Ltd. Rinso manufactures the washers at four locations around the country: New York City, Fort Worth, San Diego, and Minneapolis. Plans call for the following numbers of washing machines to be produced at each location:

New York City 50,000 Fort Worth 70,000 San Diego 60,000 Minneapolis 80,000 Bindley has three plants that can produce the motors. The plants and production capacities are Boulder 100,000 Macon 100,000 Gary 150,000 Due to varying production and transportation costs, the profit Bindley earns on each 1,000 units depends on where they were produced and where they were shipped. The following table gives the accounting department estimates of the dollar profit per unit. (Shipment will be made in lots of 1,000.)

Shipped to Produced at New York City Fort Worth San Diego Minneapolis Boulder 7 11 8 13 Macon 20 17 12 10 Gary 8 18 13 16 Given profit maximization as a criterion, Bindley would like to determine how many motors should be produced at each plant and how many motors should be shipped from each plant to each destination.

a. Develop a transportation grid for this problem.

b. Find the optimal solution using Microsoft Excel.LO15-2