Today, companies are almost without exceptions connected to other actors, customers and suppliers in a network-like configuration. How well a company can meet customer expectations depends on the cooperation and relationship to the external actors hired. Route planning can be seen as one of the main problems to solve in a supply chain since routing problems consists of multiple components and affects more than the own company. What the own company does and how it cooperates with other companies will always influence the other actors in the network. Soft values, as relationships to customers and knowledge shared with other actors, have an effect on the network but are values that cannot be incorporated into a mathematical model. The aim of the study is to solve a route planning problem with a mathematical model and then examine the soft values in the network affected by the solution to the problem. The theories used as a foundation for the study are total cost analysis, route planning, degree of filling and the network model.

The study is conducted at a company here called Skalet by reasons of anonymity. It is an international company dealing with different products sold in bulk, and the study is only examining the distribution for one of the company’s products. To examine this a combination of methods have been used. First, Skalet’s distribution problem is investigated and analyzed through a total cost analysis where the study uses quantitative calculations, interpreted in a qualitative way, to find the solution with best outcome on the chosen key performance indexes degree of filling and number of routes. Then the solution to the problem is analyzed qualitative with the network model to identify the effects the solution will have on the soft values in the company and the network. The soft values investigated are for example adaptions between companies, knowledge and connections between persons and Skalets’s position of power in the network.

Any economic advantages to the solution can’t be presented through the study. However soft values as knowledge about customers, relations between Skalet and its customers and a better structure and position of power can be shown to be positively affected by the solution.