This paper discusses improved procedures for applying heuristic methods to well-known transportation and routing algorithms for solving a milk assembly problem. Miles traveled to assemble milk are reduced by up to 20 percent in a detailed case study in New York.

This study reports an effort to improve estimates of the cost of reconstituted milk relative to fresh milk. The cost advantage of reconstituted milk is calculated for representative plants in six cities across the U.S. The implications for farm prices of lower cost reconstituted milk are discussed.