Application of facility location modeling constructs to vendor selection problems

The selection of vendors, and the determination of order quantities to be placed with those vendors are important decisions in distribution planning. To date, there have been few mathematical programming approaches to analyze such decisions. In this paper, the authors demonstrate that vendor selection problems may be formulated within the mathematical constructs of facility location modeling. As a consequence, it is expected that the extensive literature devoted to formulating and solving facility location problems may be utilized in formulating and solving specific vendor selection problems.