Branch and peg algorithms for the simple plant location problems

Abstract

The simple plant location problem is a well-studied problem in combinatorial optimization. It is one of deciding where to locate a set of plants so that a set of clients can be supplied by them at the minimum cost. This problem often appears as a subproblem in other combinatorial problems. Several branch andbound techniques have been developed to solve these problems. In this paper we present two techniques that enhance the performance of branch andboundalgorithms. The new algorithms thus obtainedare calledbranch andpeg algorithms, where pegging refers to 0xing values of variables at each subproblem in the branch andbound tree, and is distinct from variable 0xing during the branching process. We present exhaustive computational experiments which show that the new algorithms generate less than 60% of the number of subproblems generatedby branch andboundalgorithms, andin certain cases require less than 10% of the execution times requiredby branch andboundalgorithms.