Uncapacitated facility location: General solution procedure and computational experience

This paper presents a general model and dual-based branch-and-bound solution procedure for finding optimal solutions to the single-echelon, two-echelon, and multi-activity uncapacitated facility location problems. The problem is formulated as an arborescent-fixed-charge network programming model which visually displays the problem’s physical and mathematical structure and generalized modeling capabilities. Alternative strategies for implementing the dual-based solution procedure are discussed and the results of computational experiments are given to document their relative efficiency. The computational results indicate that the proposed dual-based solution procedure effectively solves realistic sized single-echelon, two-echelon, and multi-activity location problems. This research takes another step toward the development of an efficient, general purpose decision support system for distribution system planning.