Towards Sustainable Facility Location – A Literature Review

Abstract

Facility location methods play a crucial role in specifying the optimum location options for various types of facilities. A question that arises is what makes a facility location decision a sustainable one? Facility location, also known as location analysis, is a known concept in the literature, but sustainable facility location is not. This requires appropriately defining the concept and framing the problem in order to address the relevant issues. Facility location models in the existing literature do not effectively include all the requirements of sustainable development. This paper serves as a discussion of the current literature concerning the sustainability aspects of the location problem. The aim is to conduct a comprehensive literature review to identify the characteristics of the sustainable facility location problem and propose a framework for classification of sustainability characteristics. The study shows that the location literature has steadily progressed toward considering not only economic but also social and environmental criteria in location decisions; but that many steps remain to be taken toward developing location models that integrate all three aspects of sustainability into decision making. The main motivation for the current study is to provide a foundation from which issues of sustainable development can be built into facility location and siting models.

Manufacturing facility location and sustainability: A literature review and research agenda

“…Terouhid et al (2012) found 38 papers in their review, focusing on location and siting models. Therefore, it is timely to conduct a broad analysis of the state of the art on sustainability aspects related to manufacturing facility location, by providing a systematic literature review, synthesize the findings into a framework and identifying areas for future research.…”

“…Therefore, it is timely to conduct a broad analysis of the state of the art on sustainability aspects related to manufacturing facility location, by providing a systematic literature review, synthesize the findings into a framework and identifying areas for future research. In this review, we perform an independent and structured search strategy with a broader focus than Terouhid et al (2012) and identify 81 papers (with only one common paper; Dou and Sarkis, 2010). We include both quantitative 4 and qualitative research.…”

Sustainable production in emerging markets through Distributed Manufacturing Systems (DMS)

“…In the future, firms should turn performance improvements through sustainable manufacturing into a competitive weapon, reducing environmental harm and stimulating social solidarity (Kleindorfer et al, 2005). When compared with past practice, not only industry and government but also the general public are demanding more sustainable manufacturing processes and systems that satisfy economic and environmental goals (Terouhid et al, 2012).…”

A Metamodel Simulation Based Optimisation Approach for the Tidal Turbine Location Problem

“…The Tidal Turbine Location Problem (TTLP), which is the focus of this paper, constitutes a new extension to the classical Facility Location Problem (FLP) in operations research, which possesses an extensive literature spanning several decades; for reviews of variants, mathematical models, and solution methods of the FLP, see (Aikens, 1985;Owen & Daskin, 1998;ReVelle & Eiselt, 2005;Şahin & Süral, 2007;Melo et al, 2009;Farahani et al, 2010;Aras et al, 2012;Beltrán-Royo et al, 2012;Farahani et al, 2012;Terouhid et al, 2012;Drezner, 2013;Öncan, 2013;Stanimirović, 2013). There have been numerous extensions to and variants of the FLP reflecting the specific application environment under consideration.…”