Locating service centers optimizing customers' perspective criteria.pdf
Creators: name: Seifbarghy, Mehdi
name: Rabieian, Reza
name: Karimi, Fatemeh
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: 99902 Engineering Instrumentation
subject: FOS: Other engineering and technologies
subject: FOS: Other engineering and technologies
subject: 90603 Industrial Electronics
subject: FOS: Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
subject: FOS: Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
subject: 90505 Infrastructure Engineering and Asset Management
subject: FOS: Civil engineering
subject: FOS: Civil engineering
subject: 91599 Interdisciplinary Engineering not elsewhere classified
subject: 91003 Machine Tools
subject: 91004 Machining
subject: 91099 Manufacturing Engineering not elsewhere classified
subject: 91005 Manufacturing Management
subject: 91006 Manufacturing Processes and Technologies (excl. Textiles)
subject: 91007 Manufacturing Robotics and Mechatronics (excl. Automotive Mechatronics)
subject: 91008 Manufacturing Safety and Quality
subject: 91199 Maritime Engineering not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Environmental engineering
subject: FOS: Environmental engineering
subject: 91299 Materials Engineering not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Materials engineering
subject: FOS: Materials engineering
subject: Mechanical Engineering
subject: FOS: Mechanical engineering
subject: FOS: Mechanical engineering
subject: 91399 Mechanical Engineering not elsewhere classified
subject: 90304 Medical Devices
subject: FOS: Medical engineering
subject: FOS: Medical engineering
subject: 90404 Membrane and Separation Technologies
subject: FOS: Chemical engineering
subject: FOS: Chemical engineering
subject: 91207 Metals and Alloy Materials
subject: 91306 Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS)
subject: 90604 Microelectronics and Integrated Circuits
subject: 91009 Microtechnology
subject: 91404 Mineral Processing/Beneficiation
subject: 91405 Mining Engineering
subject: 91102 Naval Architecture
subject: 90904 Navigation and Position Fixing
subject: 90405 Non-automotive Combustion and Fuel Engineering (incl. Alternative/Renewable Fuels)

description: A network of several demand nodes is considered. We want to locate a number of multiserver facilities at some nodes assuming at least one server must be located at each node. Accordingly, the number of servers has to be more than the nodes number. We propose a model for locating these facilities from customers' perspective in such a way as to minimize the total average queue length, when customers choose the facilities they patronize, by the travel distance (or time) to the facility and the number of servers at the facility. This means that each customer can obtain the service or goods from several (i.e., rather than only one) facilities, according to a probabilistic distribution. Genetic and simulated annealing (SA) algorithms based heuristics are proposed to solve this problem, which belongs to nonlinear integer programming problems. We evaluate the proposed algorithms for the solution quality solving a number of numerical problems. The results indicate that SA whose objective function is around 26% less than that of genetic is of higher performance. <br>