An interactive procedure dedicated to a bicriteria plant location model

Abstract

In this paper a new algorithm is described which aims at solving efficiently a simple plant location problem with two additional constraints. Such a problem arises in the calculation phase of an interactive decision aid process that helps the decision-maker finding the non-dominated solutions for a bicriteria simple plant location problem. The two additional constraints impose upper limits on the values of each objective function. If they are relaxed, the problem turns into a simple plant location problem, which can be solved using Dualoc by Erlenkotter (oper. Res. 26(6) (1978) 992). The algorithm developed uses a slightly modified version of Dualoc (Erlenkotter, 1978) integrated into a branch and bound procedure. The results of several computational experiments are shown, showing that the new algorithm is superior both in the computational time and memory needed, when compared with a general solver. Statement of scope and purpose: The final purpose of this paper is the development of an effective interactive tool in order to aid in the aggregation of the decision maker preferences in a bicriteria location model. In the calculation phase of such tool one must solve repeatedly a simple plant location problem with two additional general constraints. The major technical improvement proposed in this paper regards the computational efficiency of the solution procedure. We were able to take advantage of the special structure of simple plant location problem even in the presence of two additional constraints.