25 January 2021 (2,360 words)

The "facility location problem" is a common, and often difficult, decision that organizations need to make.
Facilities may include assets such as factories, warehouses, shops, mobile telephone sites, etc. Such assets are typically long-lived, so the decision about where to build them has a long-term impact on the organization.
A wrong, or sub-optimal, decision is likely to be very expensive. To help make the decision, we can model the facility location problem using an optimization model in Excel.