Article ID: | iaor200971079 |
Country: | Germany |
Volume: | 167 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 327 |
End Page Number: | 336 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2009 |
Journal: | Annals of Operations Research |
Authors: | Drezner Zvi |
Keywords: | Weber problem |
In this paper we consider Weber-like location problems. The objective function is a sum of terms, each a function of the Euclidean distance from a demand point. We prove that a Weiszfeld-like iterative procedure for the solution of such problems converges to a local minimum (or a saddle point) when three conditions are met. Many location problems can be solved by the generalized Weiszfeld algorithm. There are many problem instances for which convergence is observed empirically. The proof in this paper shows that many of these algorithms indeed converge.