An application of analytic network process for selection of a plant location: a case study

Location decision is considered to be one of the strategic decisions in the fields of supply chain management (SCM) and operations management (OM). Researchers worldwide have addressed this issue by utilising various mathematical models and techniques. However, a review of literature revealed that not many papers are available, which have utilised the recently developed multi‐attribute decision making (MADM) model – namely, the analytic network process (ANP) especially for making a location decision of setting up a manufacturing plant. Hence, in this paper, an attempt has been made to address this issue by developing an ANP model to select a suitable location for a hypothetical case situation. One of the important contributions of this paper is that about 40 decision factors have been considered simultaneously and the interdependencies and interrelationships between these factors have been captured by the ANP, which is unique when compared to those models that are available in the literature addressing a similar problem.