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On Covering Problems and the Central Facilities Location Problem
Author(s) -
White John A.,
Case Kenneth E.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
geographical analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.773
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1538-4632
pISSN - 0016-7363
DOI - 10.1111/j.1538-4632.1974.tb00513.x
Subject(s) - facility location problem , 1 center problem , heuristic , computer science , finite set , set cover problem , space (punctuation) , location model , set (abstract data type) , covering problems , location theory , mathematical optimization , operations research , mathematics , geography , mathematical analysis , programming language , operating system , economic geography
A number of variations of facilities location problems have appeared in the research literature in the past decade. Among these are problems involving the location of multiple new facilities in a discrete solution space, with the new facilities located relative to a set of existing facilities having known locations. In this paper a number of discrete solution space location problems are treated. Specifically, the covering problem and the central facilities location problem are shown to be related. The covering problem involves the location of the minimum number of new facilities among a finite number of sites such that all existing facilities (customers) are covered by at least one new facility. The central facilities location problem consists of the location of a given number of new facilities among a finite number of sites such that the sum of the weighted distances between existing facilities and new facilities is minimized. Computational experience in using the same heuristic solution procedure to solve both problems is provided and compared with other existing solution procedures.