A Conceptual Framework for Dynamic Location—Allocation Analysis

Abstract

To date, much of the work published on the problems of plant construction has been restricted to either determining the timing of the building, or forming static location—allocation models, with little attempt to combine the spatial and temporal aspects into one solution. By construction of a taxonomic tree, this paper demonstrates that the capacity expansion and the location—allocation solutions are just the simplest instances of a whole class of models. Formulation of these various possibilities is undertaken and it is shown that a fully integrated spatio—temporal plant-construction model can be derived, at least at the theoretical level. Although the derivations are in the form of deterministic programming models, the concluding section of the paper suggests possible ways in which these might be reformulated to allow for the fact that most planning takes place in an uncertain environment.