A SPECIAL FACILITY LOCATION PROBLEM APPLICABLE TO THE POSTAL SERVICE NETWORK OPTIMAL DESIGN

Abstract

A special facility location problem is discussed which is applicable to the design problem of a postal service network. The cost objective of this problem includes a nonlinear concave component. In addition, there is a workload balancing requirement among all facilities for which an appropriate trade-off should be handled. We introduce the problem background, explain the simplifications needed, formulate the models, and explore some mathematical properties of the models. An efficient methodology as well as two heuristic algorithms is developed. The preliminary computational experiment is satisfactory.