A fuzzy set-theoretic method for public facility location

This paper deals with the facility location problem for a public sector distribution system. The system is characterized by two conflicting goals: the authority’s aspiration of expenditure minimization and the preference at each demand site for maximizing the amount supplied. In order to obtain a location/transportation plan at which both conflicting goals are satisfactorily traded off for all the parties involved, the fuzzy set-theoretic method is applied to render a parametric analysis of the conventional facility location problem. For the uncapacitated case, an efficient heuristic based on Erlenkotter’s dual-based method is presented, along with computational results showing its efficiency. However for the capacitated case, only a brief sketch of the heuristic is provided mainly due to its associated complexity.