Integrating simplified swarm optimization with AHP for solving capacitated military logistic depot location problem

Abstract

This work addresses a two-level facility location problem in a military logistic system, named the military logistic depot location problem (MLDLP). Unlike most previous research on facility location problems, the objective of MLDLP is to maximize the average utility of requisitioned buildings, and the utility of a selected building depends on its attributes. This work develops an integer programming model and provides a two-stage method for this problem. In the first stage, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to estimate the relative weights of the attributes as the coefficients of the objective function. In the second stage, simplified swarm optimization (SSO) is combined with a novel local search scheme based on AHP, called SSO AHP, which is proposed to deal with the problem. SSOAHP is empirically verified on thirty-six randomly generated problems, and the corresponding results are reported comparing the results with those obtained by up-to-date evolutionary computation methods.