Variable neighborhood search for two-stage facility location problem

In this paper, a heuristic algorithm of variable neighborhood search (VNS) is developed for solving two-stage facility location problem. In the VNS framework, a suitable set of neighborhoods and the order of their exploration are proposed. Besides the well-known neighborhoods, a new type of neighborhood is used. Computational experiments on benchmark instances show that in most testing instances the method gives better solutions than the simulated annealing algorithm. Tabl. 5, illustr. 3, bibl. 19.