Linear programming optimization of a network for an aluminum plant: A case study

With the dawn of economical and political reforms in Hungary in the mid-1980s the aluminum industry, among others, wanted to escape the trappings of centralized planning and directions. The managers were inexperienced and unadvised regarding the path of transformation to a market economy, as well as of the OR/MS techniques that would enable them to map the activities in their operations and provide the solutions needed to make good decisions. Managers joined outside researchers in exploring opportunities in major aluminum plants. This gave rise to the present study which brought an integrated systems approach to decision making. In this paper a logistics network is developed to model the activities of a medium-sized aluminum plant. For reasons of management requirements, a linear programming optimization appeared feasible to support decision making and to explore decision alternatives by postoptimality analysis.