A Cottonpickin' Cotton Ginning Problem

Abstract : In the Mesilla Valley of New Mexico there are 150 cotton farmers and 20 cotton gins. The weekly cotton picking and the weekly gin capacities are known, as well as the transportation and ginning costs. The objective is to determine not only the shipping schedule for shipping cotton to gins but also which gins should be opened. The paper shows how network analysis can be used not only to visualize such a model but also to develop a computationally feasible algorithm.