Genetic and heuristic algorithms for facility location problem

Abstract

Facility location problem is a branch of operations research concerning itself with solutions of problem concerning the placement of facilities in order to minimize transportation costs, avoid placing hazardous materials near housing, outperform competitor’s facilities, etc. In a simple facility location problem, a single facility is to be placed, with the only optimization criterion being the minimization of the sum of distances from a given set of point sites. More complex problem considered in this discipline includes the placement of multiple facilities, constraints on the locations of facilities, and more complex optimization criteria. It is basically a facilities location problem which includes assignment of clients to the selected number of locations from among the given number of potential locations over a different time periods, for their requirements but with the objectives of minimizing cost for satisfying demands of all clients and minimizing the maximum time needed to fulfill the requirements of all the clients along with some constraints. The present thesis contains three chapters: The first chapter is introductory in nature in which multi objective optimization, heuristic, genetic algorithm is briefly discussed. In second chapter, a warehouse location problem considered by prakash et al [22] is reviewed and a genetic algorithm has been proposed to solve this problem. In third chapter, the concept of a single objective dynamic facility location problem considered by Dias et al [4] is introduced to a multi objective warehouse problem and an algorithm proposed by prakash et al [22] is modified to find the set of efficient solutions.