Using Cluster Analysis for Location Decision Problem
Phatraporn Chain (a*), Sirawadee Arunyanart (b)
a,b) Supply Chain and Logistics System Research Unit, Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, 40002, Thailand
Abstract
Nowadays, the number of cattle farms have been increasing and spreading over the production regions. The aim of this paper is to find the appropriate locations of regional food distribution center in the northeastern of Thailand for distributing food to cattle farms. The case study was based on data from 421 standard cattle farms from all over northeastern of Thailand. Hierarchical agglomerative clustering which is a statistical technique for sorting dataset into homogeneous groups was applied to compute a range of possible clusters. After that, centroid method was used to find the location of food distribution center. The result showed that two food distribution centers are suitable for distribution of food to the cattle farms.
Keywords: Hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis, cattle farm, distribution center, Location Decision Problem
Topic: Industrial Engineering