Fuzzy location selection techniques

Facility location has an important role in terms of firms' strategic planning in the management science and operational research. One of the most common facility location problems is the location selection problem which is the most ancient but has been still a current problem for organizations. Plants, warehouses, retail outlets, terminals, storage yards, distribution centers etc. are typical facilities that must be located strategically since the location selection problem influences organizations' strategic competitive position in terms of operating cost, transportation cost, delivery speed performance, and organization's flexibility to compete in the marketplace. In this chapter, different approaches and techniques used in location selection problems are presented. In the scope of this chapter, we focus on the fuzzy multi-criteria decision making methods. Especially, in the literature, fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS are presented since they are the most widely used ones. Furthermore, it is the first time a framework based on the fuzzy information axiom is proposed for facility location selection.