Scatter search for locating a treatment plant and the necessary transfer centers in a reverse network

Abstract

In the area of Reverse Logistics, the problem of selecting locations for its key facilities consists in locating waste treatment plants, transfer centers and, in general, collection facilities. In this paper a location problem in a reverse system is presented (the so-called STPNTCLP). Put simply, this problem consists in deciding where to locate one treatment plant and its necessary transfer centers. The problem both in deterministic and stochastic terms is solved with a Scatter Search based approach that offers a better performance in both real and randomly generated cases than the proposed exact method (MILP formulation). © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.