Location of a chain of two computer services at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology campus using the P-median model
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Date
2009-08-09
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Abstract
One of the greatest problems facing both the public and the private sector enterprises is how to locate facilities. In public service oriented siting problems, decision makers have to decide about the location of public services (offices, schools, hospitals, ambulance services, banks, etc.), while emphasizing on the accessibility of public services to people. In the case of most medical emergencies, the risk of lost of life increases with response time. Consequently, one reasonable objective is to minimize response time given a limited budget.
Industrial firms must determine locations for fabrication and assembly plants as well as warehouses. Retail outlets must also locate stores. The cost of serving a retail establishment from a warehouse may depend on the time a driver must spend traveling from the warehouse to the retail store. In this case, the cost depends approximately linearly on the distance between the store and the warehouse. In all cases the right location is paramount.
This piece of work attempts to use the p-median model (2-median) to find suitable location for setting up a chain of two computer services at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) campus.
Different methods were used to locate the suitable sites, but the main one was the Lagrangian algorithm. The result obtained using the Lagrangian suggested that, the two facilities be located at the Republic Hall (node E) and the University Hall (node B). The optimal objective function value was 1719170 metres. This value gave the demand-weighted distance. It resulted in the average distance of 207 metres. (i.e. the average distance = the demand-weighted distance divided by the total demand; 1719170 m / 8310 207 m). It implies that, on average, each student would travel a distance of 207 metres from a hall / hostel to the nearby facility.
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A Thesis submitted to the Department of Mathematics, Kwame Nkrumah University of Sciencecience of Technology
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.