A DYNAMIC-PROGRAMMING HEURISTIC FOR THE P-MEDIAN PROBLEM

A new heuristic algorithm is proposed for the P-median problem. The he uristic restricts the size of the state space of a dynamic programming algorithm. The approach may be viewed as an extension of the myopic o r greedy adding algorithm for the P-median model. The approach allows planners to identify a large number of solutions all of which perform well with respect to the P-median objective of minimizing the demand w eighted average distance between customer locations and the nearest of the P selected facilities. In addition, the results indicate regions in which it is desirable to locate facilities. Computational results f rom three test problems are discussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.