A Study on the Optimal Location of Physical Distribution Centers

The problem treated is that of locating distribution centers(depot) in a network, so as to minimize the total cost which is the sum of transportation cost, (from factory to centers and from centers to demand points), construction cost, inventory cost and traffic increasing cost. This problem is mathematically an integer program and a non-linear model. This study avoids various inefficient aspects, which many studies have shown, by introducing a matrix notation, node and link function. An algorithm, for determining the optimal location of distribution center which has zone in which demand points are located at some node of a network, is presented. Finally this paper describes a numerical example and discusses its results.