A Web-Based Decision Support System for the Multiple Capacitated Facility Location Problem

Abstract

The facility location problem is a widely studied classical operations research problem. To address this problem we implement an algorithm that calculates the exact solution for a given multiple capacitated facility location problem so long as that exists. Many issues of this problem belong to the NP-hard class of algorithms and as a result the computation time is disappointing for large networks. Therefore, we present a dynamic approximation algorithm for the solution of this problem that is capable to compute an approximation solution in an acceptable time interval. The aforementioned algorithms are integrated in a web-based Decision Support System (DSS). The DSS offers the possibility to create either a random or a custom graph and to evaluate both algorithms by performing alternative scenarios for the future development of the market. Finally, the DSS can export the results of the evaluation to a Microsoft Word document for further use.