Title: A mathematical location-routing model of repair centres and ammunition depots in order to support soldiers in civil wars

Authors: Kaveh Khalili-Damghani; Hossein Naderi

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, South-Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, South-Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: One of the most crucial factors in civil wars is to properly support fighting soldiers. Since the opposition forces are usually faced with many difficulties to provide themselves with ammunition, they should use their ammunitions and equipment with extreme care. This makes them establish centres for repairing defective military equipment. This article intends to present a mathematical integer linear programming (ILP) model in order to minimise the expenses related to locations, routing, and reverse logistics of fighting forces. The presented model has been solved by numerical examples of different sizes using Branch and Bound method and its applicability has been shown in the real world problems.

Keywords: location routing problem; LRP; resource allocation; integer linear programming; ILP; branch and bound method; mathematical modelling; reverse logistics; repair centres; ammunition depots; military support; civil wars; fighting forces; soldiers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMDM.2014.065360

International Journal of Management and Decision Making, 2014 Vol.13 No.4, pp.422 - 450

Received: 25 Jun 2014
Accepted: 26 Jul 2014

Published online: 14 Nov 2014 *

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