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Abstract
Little attention has been devoted to the study of spatial organization of marketing
facilities in developing countries, even though such studies would be most
useful for a wide range of marketing problems. The results of such studies could
be valuable to private and public decision-makers in developing countries whose
policies and decisions determine the number, size and location of marketing facilities.
The spatial organization model developed in this paper for application to
the oilseeds industry in Sudan demonstrates the relevance of this research technique
for developing country studies of marketing facilities. A linear programming
transshipment model is utilized to determine the optimal spatial
organization of oilseeds in Sudan when the costs of oilseed assembly, processing
and distribution of oil and cake to final destinations are considered simultaneously.
The optimal spatial organization of oilseed processing plants was determined
for six alternative solutions. Model results indicate that the optimal
organization of processing plants would be obtained with fewer and larger plants,
resulting in lower transportation costs.