Answer:
b. minimizing the cost of shipping goods from the plant to the store
Explanation:
If we were to devise a linear program for this case, the most likely objective function would be to minimize the cost of shipping from the plants to the stores, because this is a key aspect to the operation since it can become a costly bottleneck.
While there are three plants, and three stores, this does not mean that costs will be optimized if the same number of goods and produced in each plant, and transported from each plant to a designated store. In fact, it is likely that each plant produces a different amount of goods, which further complicates the problem.
For this reason, it is necessary to find the best combination of shipped goods, from each plant, to each store.
