Problem # 2_Transshipment Problem

Manras Med Incorporated is a distributor of Personal Protective Equipement (PPEs) in North America. Personal protective equipment (PPEs) are protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection that have been mandatorily used during the pandemic of Covid 19.  The company contracts manufacturers from all over the world and domestic suplliers like 3M, and these products are delivered to warehouses in three Europen ports Gdansk, Hamburg and Lisbon.  The PPEs are loaded into container ships to the ports of Norfolk, Jacksonville, New Orleans and Galveston. From these seaports, the containers are typically coupled with trucks and hauled to inland ports of Front Royal, Kansas and Dallas.  There are a fixed number of freight haulers available at each port each month. From these inland ports, the containers are transported to Manras distribution centers in  Tuczon, Pittsburg and Denver, Nashville and Cleveland. Following are the handling and shipping costs ($/container) between each of the embarkation and destination points along this overseas supply chain and the available containers at each port.

Formulate and solve a linear programming model using solver to determine the optimal transshipment from each of point of embarkation to each destination along this supply chain that will result in the minimum total shipping cost.