Application of Hub Location Problem in Construction Industry Supply Chain

Abstract

AbstractThe applications of hub location in the construction industry's supply chain are indicated in this review. The primary advantages of hub networks stem from (i) lower movement (i.e., transportation or transmission) costs from consolidated flows that exploit economies of scale, especially between hubs, (ii) reduced costs from establishing a sparser network to connect many dispersed origin-destination (O–D) pairs, and (iii) better service from allowing more frequent connections due to the consolidated flows. The research describes the background in the supply chain, especially the construction industry, as well as the background of hub location issues with a brief introduction. The research gap related to the application of hub location problems in the construction industry's supply chain is specified by reviewing and comparing research. Given the framework for a wide range of hub location problems and models and the supply chain in the construction industry, the service time and cost variables have been a common chapter between the two areas. The proposal to use a simple Hub Center Problem model with a service time variable due to the similar application of this type of model in the research background in a similar supply chain is presented in the final section.KeywordsSupply chainHub locationConstruction industryPlanning