Title: Application of a new multi criteria decision making method for warehouse location problem

Authors: Behnam Malmir; Azam Aghighi; Mohammad Najjartabar Bisheh; Ali Ala; Behzad Aslani Avilaq; Safoora Dehghani

Addresses: Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA ' Department of Industrial and System Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China ' Department of Management Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey ' Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran

Abstract: Proper warehouse location selection is one of the most important challenges in the optimisation process of a logistics system and many quantitative and qualitative factors affect it. Therefore, through this paper a new balancing and ranking method with an interval data approach is presented. This method involves a three-step procedure to derive an overall complete final order of warehouses previously selected as possible locations. The procedure involves defining an outranking matrix based on criteria values for all available warehouse locations while taking into account the frequency of superiority of one location over others. Ordering of warehouse locations were performed based on information from an advantages-disadvantages table, distance travelled after final balancing, and the provisional order of locations. This provisional order of locations, referred to as triangularisation. In order to demonstrate effectiveness of the method it was applied to a case study and results were evaluated and verified.

Keywords: warehouse location; location selection; balancing and ranking method; outranking matrix; multicriteria decision making; MCDM; interval approach; facility location; optimisation; logistics; triangularisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVCM.2015.079211

International Journal of Value Chain Management, 2015 Vol.7 No.3, pp.255 - 270

Received: 07 May 2016
Accepted: 11 Jul 2016
Published online: 22 Sep 2016 *

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