On the implementation of quantitative facility location models: The case of a hospital in a rural region

Recently a public committee has been appointed by the Israeli government. The committee was assigned to prepare regional plans for the northeastern Negev, in the southern part of Israel, in order to absorb some of the large waves of immigrants (about 400,000) expected by the year 2000. Among the strategic issues treated by the committee were the questions when, where and whether to build a new hospital in the area. The locational decision was studied by first identifying a finite candidate set of possible sites. At the final stage various quantitative locational models were employed. In the next stage a subjective multicriteria model was further used to derive locationally preferred solutions. This paper focuses on the first stage. Furthermore, the suggested solution approach is discussed in light of strategic issues.