Effective and Efficient Heuristic Algorithms for Supporting Optimal Location of Hubs over Networks with Demand Uncertainty

Abstract

The problem faced in this paper concerns with finding the optimal location for the hubs in a network, under demand uncertainty, and where the allocation of the nodes is treated as a second stage decision. We proceed first with the definition of the mathematical model that we carved to fit the operational needs of GUROBI Optimizer. Afterwards, we propose a collection of heuristic algorithms able to solve the problem in a faster way with sub-optimal solutions. The heuristic algorithms proposed in our framework progressively reach a good approximation of the solution. Experimental results confirm the benefits of our approach.