Zvi Drezner - Böcker

Facility location is concerned with the siting of one or more facilities in a way that optimizes certain objectives such as minimizing transportation costs, providing equitable service to customers, or minimizing the time taken to deliver emergency services. This handbook presents a wide-ranging survey of location analysis. Both researchers in the subject and practitioners concerned with the solution of real-world problems will find this an up-to-date and comprehensive volume which addresses all the major methods and applications in the field. Each chapter has been written by an expert on that particular topic, and the editor has taken care to ensure a uniformity of style and notation throughout. The book is organized into four parts: Methodology and analysis of facility location. - Various objectives in facility location. - Competitive facility location. - Routing and location.

Facility location applications are concerned with the location of one or more facilities in a way that optimizes a certain objective such as mini­ mizing transportation cost, providing equitable service to customers, cap­ turing the largest market share, etc. Facility location problems give rise to challenging geometrical and combinatorial problems. The research on facility location problems spans many research fields such as operations re­ search/management science, industrial engineering, geography, economics, computer science, mathematics, marketing, electrical engineering, urban planning, and related fields. Applications to facility location models abound. Location of warehouses, plants, hospitals, retail outlets are classical examples. Applications are also found in the location of electronical components, warning sirens, sprinklers, radar beams, exploratory oil wells. These are less obvious "facilities". One should consider applying a location model to any scenario that involves finding a best location (or locations) for any object(s). This book Facility Location: A Survey of Applications and Methods pro­ vides a state of the art review along with references to important contem­ porary topics in locational analysis. The book includes twenty chapters divided into four parts, each dealing with a different aspect of location modeling and implementation. The book concludes with over 1,200 refer­ ences. The first part Methodology and Analysis consists of a survey of method­ ological and technical aspects of location analysis. Issues such as estimating distances, the error introduced by assuming discrete demand rather than continuous one, global optimization techniques, inference of weights, con­ jugate duality, and using Voronoi diagrams are reviewed.

The book covers both theory and applications of locational analysis (LocAn). The reader will see the power of LocAn models in various real-world contexts varying from communication design, robotics, mail delivery, etc. As such it is a valuable source for practitioners, lecturers and students. The book is divided into two parts: The first part contains chapters in which an overview of some of the LocAn methodologies is given. The second part describes in more detail some selected applications. The book is well-suited as source for a graduate course, but also for students, lecturers and practitioners who want to learn about LocAn through self-study. It gives researchers a state-of-the-art review of available location models.