Scalable Heuristic for Locating Distribution Centers on Real Road Networks

Authors

Saeed Ghanbartehrani, Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Ohio UniversityFollow
Jose David Porter, School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Oregon State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Research Paper

Publication Date

2018

Abstract

The median problem is a type of network location problem that aims at finding a node with the total minimum demand weighted distance to a set of demand points in a weighted graph. In this research, an algorithm for solving the median problem on real road networks is proposed. The proposed algorithm, referred to as the Multi-Threaded Dijkstra’s (MTD) algorithm, is used to locate Walmart distribution centers on the 28-million node road network of the United States with the objective of minimizing the total demand weighted transportation cost. The resulting optimal location configuration of Walmart distribution centers improves the total transportation cost by 46%.

Comments

Paper 13

Publication Title

Progress in Material Handling Research

Recommended Citation

Ghanbartehrani, Saeed and Porter, Jose David, "Scalable Heuristic for Locating Distribution Centers on Real Road Networks" (2018). 15th IMHRC Proceedings (Savannah, Georgia. USA – 2018). 6.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/pmhr_2018/6