industrial packaging solutions (ips) is a manufacturer of corrugated fiberboard shipping boxes used by companies across the united states. final products are consolidated on standard shipping pallets of uniform dimensions and weight. because of this, the cost to ship a pallet to a single destination is the same regardless of the type of box loaded on the pallet. the standard unit for sales and operations planning at ips is a pallet load. after recently opening a new factory to satisfy growing demand for their products, ips is concerned about allocating demand from their customers to the facilities in their production network. they want to do so in a way that minimizes the total cost of supplying final products to their customers.