FLP Spreadsheet Solver is now available.

Developed by Dr. Güneş Erdoğan, 2014.
Mailto: G.Erdogan[at]bath.ac.uk

The Microsoft Excel workbook “FLP Spreadsheet Solver” is an open source unified platform for representing, solving, and visualising the results of Facility Location Problems (FLPs). It unifies Excel, public GIS, and metaheuristics. It can solve Facility Location Problems with up to 200 locations.

The download link is available here.

FLP Spreadsheet Solver is a continuation of the VRP Spreadsheet Solver, and is based on the same design principles and similar worksheet and menu structures. It provides three objective functions: minimizing total cost, maximizing total demand covered, and minimizing the maximum service distance. It is capable of solving the p-Median, Uncapacitated and Capacitated Facility Location, Maximum Coverage Location, and vertex restricted p-Center problems, in addition to others. It provides the possibility of acquiring the coordinates of the location, the driving distances between the locations, and the static map covering the locations through the public GIS service of Bing Maps. Please consult their Terms of Service (http://www.microsoft.com/maps/product/terms.html) before using the FLP Spreadsheet Solver.

A video tutorial is available at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a7MbzzG9Hg

What’s new in Version 1.03:

– “Geodesic approximation” has been renamed as “Bird flight distances” for simplicity and clarity;
– The progress of the Bing Maps distance computation is displayed on the status bar;
– A parameter for displaying progress of the solver on the status bar is added;
– There is now a menu button “Send feedback / ask a question” that starts an e-mail to the developer.