Computational Intelligence for Facility Location Allocation Problems

Abstract

Due to the advancement of information technology and other supporting mechanisms, today’s companies are doing businesses in a global market. Many international corporations accept worldwide orders via their world-wide-web (WWW) sites. By taking advantages of the Internet and WWW, companies can now operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and reach as many customers as possible. This phenomenon has created a business model—the Electronic Commerce (EC) model that has caught a lot of research interests lately. No matter how an EC company is set up, its operations normally involve information flow, cash flow and goods flow; and unless goods can be packaged in a digital format such as software, music, or video, most goods still need to be distributed by some sort of physical channels. In a business to customer (B2C) EC company, the product distribution system might involve warehouse location and vehicle routing problems. On the other hand, for a business to business (B2B) EC company, the global logistic system becomes an essential part of its worldwide supply chain management system. Likewise, the logistic system can involve warehouse location and customer allocation problems.