A four-point direction search heuristic algorithm applied to facility location on plane, sphere, and ellipsoid surfaces

Abstract

A facility location problem (FLP) refers to the best location for establishing a facility to optimally connect and meet the requirements of the demand points. In a supply chain on the earth’s surface, the cost function essentially includes a distance metric to compute the objective function. If the data points are located in a small area, Euclidean Distance (ED) can be considered. When the data points are fairly separated on the earth’s surface, ED cannot give a correct estimate and we have to opt for either a spherical model or an ellipsoidal model. This paper proposes a simple four-point direction search algorithm and a model which can be used for locating a facility on a plane, sphere, and ellipsoid model of earth. The main advantage of the proposed algorithm is that it can be used with any distance metric without changing the algorithm.