Theoretical Paper
Journal of the Operational Research Society (2008) 59, 624–636. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602332 Published online 13 December 2006
Investigation of practical, robust and flexible decisions for facility location problems using tabu search and simulation
K Sörensen1
1University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Correspondence: K Sörensen, Faculty of Applied Economics, University of Antwerp, Prinsstraat 13, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium. E-mail: kenneth.sorensen@ua.ac.be
Received August 2004; Accepted July 2006; Published online 13 December 2006.
Abstract
We investigate how robust and flexible solutions of stochastic capacitated facility location problems (CFLPs) can be obtained by combining metaheuristic optimization with Monte Carlo sampling techniques. To this end, we develop a tabu search procedure for the CFLP, and use this to solve an extensive set of stochastic versions of this problem.
Keywords:
facility location, stochastic, optimization, metaheuristics, robustness, flexibility
