input
- All locations, associated volumes, and predefined location clusters
- Set of potential facilities, capacities and opening costs
- Predefined min and max number of facilities
Engine
- Chooses a subset of facilities to minimise the sum of opening costs and the total distance between all locations and the facility they are assigned to
Output
- Facility locations
- The set of locations assigned to each facility (i.e. its catchment)
- A map illustrating the catchments for each facility
Specifications
Features
- Very fast optimization even for very large numbers of locations
- Many alternatives can be examined quickly
Benefits
- Determines best geographical location for a proposed new site or set of sites
- The facilities chosen can form the basis for full network model optimisations
Approach
- A Mixed Integer Program is used to find the optimal solution
- The facilities are chosen to minimise the sum of the facility opening costs and the total weighted straight-line distance between the facilities and the locations assigned to them
- The catchment of each facility respects the facilities capacity and any predefined location clustering.
Screenshots
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