Location decisions

In more recent times the location decision has been influenced by government intervention, e.g. ... 

What do you want out of retirement Do you want to move Do you want to stay where you are for part of the year and spend the rest of the year someplace else Do you plan to travel Do you plan to work either full- or part time In what activities do you plan to engage Do you have a dream place in mind What does your life partner want When you begin by thinking about and discussing these issues, your retirement location decision will be easier. The basic message is Plan around the activities and lifestyle you wish to pursue in retirement and make sure the location you choose will support them. 

As discussed above, production network design includes several interdependent decisions such as number, location, capacity and technology of plants. While all of these decisions have to be made simultaneously to create an optimized production network, the location decision is at the heart... 

Meyer-Lindemann (1951) proposed the first segmentation of industrial facility location research in German literature. Based on the research objective, he defined four segments Location selection analyzes the determinants of location decisions, location impact analyzes the effect a given location decision has on its environment, location development analyzes the historical development of site structures and location policy seeks to create economic policy options to influence location decisions of companies. 

While the underlying mathematical optimization problem, also referred to as Steiner-Weber-problem or minisum problem, is one of the classical models discussed in operations research literature on facility location (cf. Drezner et al. 2001), it is much too abstract to be of real value to actual industrial location decisions (cf. Gotze 1995, p. 56). A general criticism of Weber s theory can be found in Behrens (1971, pp. 15-19) and Meyer-Lindemann (1951, pp. 55-67). 

Another important field of research has been to identify factors influencing location decisions in order to develop a system of location factors (cf. Table 1 for exemplary location factors). Frequently cited systems were published for example by Ruschenpohler (1958) and Behrens (1971). Behrens grouped location factors into sourcing, transformation and sales... 

Artikis GP (1991) Plant Location Decisions in the Greek Food Industry. International Journal of Operations Production Management 11 57-70... 

Brush TH, Maritan CA, Kamani A (1999) The plant location decision in multinational manufacturing firms an empirical analysis of international business and manufacturing strategy perspectives. Production and Operations Management 8 109-132... 

Canel C, Das SR (2002) Modeling global facility location decisions integrating marketing and manufacturing decisions. Industrial Management Data Systems 102 110-118... 

Current J, Min H, Schilling D (1990) Multiobjective analysis of facility location decisions. European Journal of Operational Research 49 295-307... 

Haigh RW (1989) Investment strategies and the plant-location decision. Praeger, New York et al. 

Karakaya F, Canel C (1998) Underlying dimensions of business location decisions. Industrial Management Data Systems 7 321-329 Karkazis J (1989) Facilities location in a competitive environment A PROMETHEE based multiple criteria analysis. European Journal of Operational Research 42 294-304... 

Kathawala Y, Gholamnezhad H (1987) New approach to facility location decisions. International Journal of Systems Science 18 389-402 Kaufman L, Vanden Eede M (1977) A Plant and Warehouse Location Problem. Operational Research Quarterly 28 547-554 Keeney RL (1992) Value-Focused Thinking. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts... 

Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium 1 388-393 Tong H-M, Walter CK (1980) An Empirical Study of Plant Location Decisions of Foreign Manufacturing Investors in the United States. Columbia Journal of World Business 15 66-73 Tragantalerngsak S, Holt J, Ronnqvist M (2000) An exact method for the two-echelon, single-source, capacitated facility location problem. European Journal of Operational Research 123 473-489 Triantaphyllou E (2001) Two New Cases of Rank Reversals when the AHP and Some of its Additive Variants are Used that do not Occur with the Multiplicative AHP. Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 10 11-25... 

Wardrep BN (1985) Factors Which Play Major Roles in Location Decisions. Industrial Development 154 8-13 Weber A (1909) Uber den Standort der Industrien. JCB Mohr, Tubingen Weber M, Borcherding K (1993) Behavioral influences on weight judgments in multiattribute decision making. European Journal of Operational Research 67 1-12... 

Landfills, sewage treatment plants, and factories can be planned and managed with high environmental standards. The location decisions of such undertakings have to ensure the safety of the groundwater. For this reason, the following surveys and studies are essential ... 

Wolverton, A. (2002a). Does Race Matter An Examination of a Polluting Plant s Location Decision, mimeo, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Center for Environmental Economics. 

Of course transportation costs may affect facility location decisions. Review of some optimization problems regarding transportation is in Sect 4.1. 

Abstract Transportation and facility location decisions are crucial in strategic supply chain design. Optimization models guide location decisions giving the optimal site selection under certain assumptions and constraints. It is an art to decide which model to use and how to modify the results based on the needs of a company. This chapter presents some of the important optimization models in supply chain. Mathematical formulations and solution procedures are also given. The models can be expanded for multi-echelon supply chains and/or include multiple products. 

They reveal that facility location problems mostly include inventory and production decisions as well while routing, transportation mode selection, and procurement integrated location decision problems receive less attention in the literature. Facility location decisions are strategic in supply chain design since a company supply chain will need to adapt to changing market needs migrating to new locations for example. They also state that most of the facility location studies consider minimization of costs as the objective. 

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