Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Mechanization Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Guilan, rASHT, iRAN

2 Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering; Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In this research, different strategies were developed to establish an agricultural service center in terms of the number and capacity of services provided. A separate location model was developed to locate agricultural service centers for each solution. For this purpose, the location-allocation model was used to develop the location models and the branch and bound algorithm to solve the models. The main purpose of these models was to minimize the cost of deploying agricultural service centers (including start-up and shipping costs to the point of service). In the model solved in this study, measures such as cost of establishment, cost of service start-up, distance between service center to customers, transportation costs and number of trips required to meet each customer's demand were considered. In this study, in order to show the practical capabilities of developed methods and models, a case study was conducted in Razan city, in Hamadan Province. After implementation of the location-allocation model, the optimal locations to establish agricultural service centers in all  villages of the area were determined separately. The results of this study can be used by national and regional managers and planners in locating agricultural service and planning centers to provide services to agricultural users.

Keywords

Ahumada, O., & Villalobos, J. R. (2009). Application of planning models in the agri-food supply chain: A review. European Journal of Operational Research, 195, 1-20.
 
Anon, 2005. Annual Agricultural Statistics.Tehran. (in Persian)
 
Anon, 2012. Guidance package supportive plan for equipping the mechanization companies from the credit subsidies for inputs and factors of agricultural production. Technical Report. Center of Agricultural Mechainzation Development. Tehran. (in Persian)
 
Aramyan, C., Ondersteijn, O., Kooten, O. V., & Lansink, A. O. (2006). Performance indicators in agri-food production chains, In: C. J. M. Ondersteijn., J. H. M. Wijnands., R. B. M. Huirne., & O. Kooten (Eds.) Quantifying the Agri-Food Supply Chain. Springer.
 
Badri, M. A. (1999). Combining the analytic hierarchy process and goal programming for global facility location-allocation problem. International Journal of Production Economics. 62, 237-248.
 
Bojic, S., Datkov, D., Brcanov, D., Georgijevic, M., & Martinov, M. (2013). Location allocation of solid biomass power plants: Case study of Vojvodina. Rnewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 26, 769-775.
 
Brandeau, M. L., & Chiu, S. S. (1989). An overview of representative problems in location Research. Management Science, 35, 645-674.
 
Brimberg, J., & Mladenovic, N. (1996). Solving the continuous location-allocation problem with tabu search.  Studies in Locational Annals,8, 23-32.
 
Cooper, L. (1963). Location-Allocation problems. Operational Research, 11, 331-343.
 
Dantrakul, S., Likasiri, C., & Pongvuthithum, R. (2014). Applied p-median and p-center algorithms for facility location problems. Expert Systems with Applications, 41, 3596-3604.
 
Doh, J. P., Bunyaratavej, K., & Hahn, E. D. (2009). Separable but not equal: The location determinants of discrete services offshoring activities. Journal of International Business Studies, 40, 926-943.
 
Farrow, A., Risinamhodzi, K., Zingore, S., & Delve, R. J. (2011). Spatially targeting the distribution of agricultral input stockists in Malawi. Agricultural Systems, 104, 694-702.
 
Hakimi, S. (1964). Optimum distribution of switching centers in a communication network and some graph theoretic problems. Operational Research,13, 462-475.
 
Hansen, P., Jaumard, B., & Taillard, E. (1998). Heuristic solution of the multi source Weber problem as a p-median problem. Operations Research Letters,22, 55-62.
 
Huang, L., Yu, J., & Huang, X. (2012). Modeling agricultural logistics distribution center location based on ISM. Journal of Software, 7, 638-643.
 
Jouzdani, J., Sadjadi, S. J., & Fathian, M. (2013). Dynamic dairy facility location and supply chain planning under traffic congestion and demand uncertainty: A case study of Tehran. Applied Mathematical Modelling, 37, 8467-8483.
 
Kuenne, R. E., & Soland, R. M. (1972). Exact and approximate solutions to the multi source Weber problem. Math Program, 3, 193-209.
 
Lucas, M., & Chhajed, D. (2004). Applications of location analysis in agriculture: A survey. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 55, 561-578.
 
Murray, A. T., & Church, R. L. (1996). Applying simulated annealing to location-planning models. Hournal of Heuristics, 2, 31-53.
 
Berman, Z. D., & Wesolowsky, G. O. (2008). The multiple location of transfer points
the multiple location of transfer points. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 59, 805-811.
 
Ohlemuller, M. (1997). Tabu search for larg location-allocation problems. Journal of Operations Research Society, 48, 745-750.
 
Satake, T., Sakata, O., Ohta, Y., & Furuya, T. (2003). Optimal layout design for agricultural facility using simulated annealing. The CIGR Journal, 5, 1-11.
 
Thompson, E., Wang, Q., & Li, M. (2013). Anaerobic digester systems (ADS) for multiple dairy farms: A GIS analysis for optimal site selection. Energy Policy, 61, 114-124.
 
Zangeneh, M., Omid, M., & Akram, A. (2010). A comparative study on energy use and cost analysis of potato production under different farming technologies in Hamadan province of Iran. Energy, 35 (7), 2927-2933.
 
Zucchi, J. D., Zeng, A. Z., & Caixeta-Filho, J. V. (2011). Optimum location for export-oriented slaughterhpuses in Mato Grosso, Brazil: a dynamic mathematical model. International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications, 14, 135-148.