A multi‐objective logistics model for a capacitated service facility problem

There have been numerous extensions of the maximum covering location problem that has been developed in the last decade to deal with facility location. Most of the research, however, addresses a single attribute or objective. In the case when a single criterion such as minimizing average response time to access a service facility is insufficient to address the interests of the decision maker, multiple objectives must be employed. Qualitative factors like customer service and market demand as well as quantitative factors like distribution and operating costs need to be appropriately weighted and used in a mathematical programming model. We develop a multi‐objective model for a service facility location problem that simultaneously sites facilities and allocates demand for products from different customer zones. We apply this model to “real‐world” data and show the practical advantages of using this model to solve capacitated service logistics problems.

[1]  Reza Barkhi,et al.  A REVIEW OF COVERING PROBLEMS IN FACILITY LOCATION. , 1993 .

[2]  D. Schilling,et al.  Facility location: a review of context-free and EMS models. , 1977, Health services research.

[3]  Said Salhi,et al.  Facility Location: A Survey of Applications and Methods , 1996 .

[4]  S. Hakimi.  Optimum Distribution of Switching Centers in a Communication Network and Some Related Graph Theoretic Problems , 1965 .

[5]  Oded Berman,et al.  Optimal Location of Discretionary Service Facilities , 1992, Transp. Sci..

[6]  Richard L. Church,et al.  The maximal covering location problem , 1974 .

[7]  Mark S. Daskin,et al.  Network and Discrete Location: Models, Algorithms and Applications , 1995 .

[8]  Umit Akinc,et al.  Selecting a set of vendors in a manufacturing environment , 1993 .

[9]  Richard M. Soland,et al.  A multicriteria approach to the location of public facilities , 1980 .

[10]  David J. Eaton,et al.  Determining Emergency Medical Service Vehicle Deployment in Austin, Texas , 1985 .

[11]  Avijit Ghosh,et al.  LOCATION-ALLOCATION MODELS IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR: PROGRESS, PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS. , 1993 .

[12]  Charles ReVelle,et al.  Concepts and applications of backup coverage , 1986 .

[13]  Rajan Batta,et al.  Covering-Location Models for Emergency Situations That Require Multiple Response Units , 1990 .

[14]  Pitu B. Mirchandani,et al.  Location on networks : theory and algorithms , 1979 .

[15]  David Kendrick,et al.  GAMS, a user's guide , 1988, SGNM.