ABSTRACT

Transportation problems arise each time there is a need to distribute a commodity from several sources to several destinations, where the management is focused on identifying the distribution route that will optimize some objectives such as minimization of total cost or maximization of profit. Conventional methods of computing solutions to such problems are time consuming, challenging and error prone. In this study, a desktopbased system is developed to address these drawbacks. The system is designed to facilitate the processes and manage challenges surrounding the manual computation of optimal solutions to transportation problems. The conceptual design including the Flowcharts, the Entity-Relationship Model and the Use Cases for the developed system is also presented. The programming tools used for the development of the system are Java and NetBeans 8.1 integrated development environment. Apache Derby was also used for the development of the database. Performance assessment was carried out by a number of reviewers and the average feedback indicates that the system is reliable, robust and user-friendly. The reviewers of the system comprised of software developers and students. The test proved the validity of using this system to find optimal solutions to transportation problems.