Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2016

DOI

10.3934/jimo.2016.12.1215

Publication Title

Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization

Volume

12

Issue

4

Pages

1215-1225

Abstract

This study proposes a novel methodology towards using ant colony optimization (ACO) with stochastic demand. In particular, an optimizationsimulation-optimization approach is used to solve the Stochastic uncapacitated location-allocation problem with an unknown number of facilities, and an objective of minimizing the fixed and transportation costs. ACO is modeled using discrete event simulation to capture the randomness of customers’ demand, and its objective is to optimize the costs. On the other hand, the simulated ACO’s parameters are also optimized to guarantee superior solutions. This approach’s performance is evaluated by comparing its solutions to the ones obtained using deterministic data. The results show that simulation was able to identify better facility allocations where the deterministic solutions would have been inadequate due to the real randomness of customers’ demands.

Comments

Web of Science: "Free full-text from publisher."

Original Publication Citation

Arnaout, J. P., Arnaout, G., & El Khoury, J. (2016). Simulation and optimization of ant colony optimization algorithm for the stochiastic uncapacitated location-allocation problem. Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization, 12(4), 1215-1225. doi:10.3934/jimo.2016.12.1215

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