Transportation models are helpful tools for modifying and examining existing transportation systems as well as implementing new ones. Moreover, these models are useful for making critical decisions regarding resource distribution in factories and other business structures. These models can also be used as appropriate tools that provide decision makers in business with the relevant information required to have an equilibrium between supply and cost (Schöbel 491-493). The models can be used for capacity planning in the same manner as engineering models are used in highways and waterways planning. Transportation models also help in deciding the optimal shipping plan by establishing the lowest possible cost for shipping from several sources to several destinations (Carlsson, & Rönnqvist 2612-15). This helps in comparing and finding alternatives basing on their effects on the final cost. The models can be applied in production planning, location decision, capacity planning as well as planning transshipment.
Usually, there is a transportation problem involving the determination of a minimum-cost for shipment from numerous sources to multiple destinations. Therefore, the transportation model is useful in determining how supplies should be delivered to various destinations and at the same time minimizing overall shipping cost. Thus, transportation costs play a significant in the location decision. Transportation models are at times applied in comparing location alternatives regarding their influence on total distribution costs for any system (Schöbel 495). Use of transportation is also instrumental in establishing the allocation of available supplies from factories to warehouses where they are stocked awaiting demand thereby reducing total shipping costs. Therefore, it is evident that to establish an alternative facility location in an already existing framework; transportation models come in handy in dissecting the transshipment problem.
Work Cited
Schöbel, Anita. "Line planning in public transportation: models and methods."OR spectrum 34.3 (2012): 491-510. Schöbel, A. (2012). Line planning in public transportation: models and methods. OR Spectrum, 34(3), 491-510.
Carlsson, Dick, and Mikael Rönnqvist. "Backhauling in forest transportation: models, methods, and practical usage." Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37.12 (2007): 2612-2623.
