Location-Allocation Problem: A Methodology with VNS Metaheuristic

Abstract

In this work, we present beginnings of a methodology that allows the establishment of relationships between the location of the facilities and the clients’ allocation with a dense demand. The use of this application lets us know the optimal location of production facilities, warehouses or distribution centers in a geographical space. We also solve the customers’ dense demand for goods or services; this is, finding the proper location of the facilities in a populated geographic territory, where the population has a demand for services in a constant basis. Finding the location means obtaining the decimal geographical coordinates where the facility should be located, such that the transportation of products or services costs the least. The implications and practical benefits of the results of this work have allowed an enterprise to design an efficient logistics plan in benefit of its supply chain. Firstly, the territory must be partitioned by a heuristic method, due do the combinatory nature of the partitioning. After this process, the best partition is selected with the application of factorial experiment design and the surface response methodology. Once the territory has been partitioned into k zones, where the center of each zone is the distribution center, we apply the continuous dense demand function and solve the location-allocation problem for an area where the population has a dense demand for services.