The least element property of center location on tree networks with applications to distance and precedence constrained problems

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In the classicalp-center location model on a network there is a set of customers, and the primary objective is to selectp service centers that will minimize the maximum distance of a customer to a closest center. Suppose that thep centers receive their supplies from an existing central depot on the network, e.g. a warehouse. Thus, a secondary objective is to locate the centers that optimize the primary objective "as close as possible" to the central depot. We consider tree networks and twop-center models. We show that the set of optimal solutions to the primary objective has a semilattice structure with respect to some natural ordering. Using this property we prove that there is ap-center solution to the primary objective that simultaneously minimizes every secondary objective function which is monotone nondecreasing in the distances of thep centers from the existing central depot. Restricting the location models to a rooted path network (real line) we prove that the above results hold for the respective classicalp-median problems as well.