A historical perspective on location problems

Location problems represent a popular class of optimization problems in the field of logistics, and their applications play a key role in strategic planning activities related to both manufacturing and service industries. This paper presents a historical perspective of their evolution, from the historic challenge posed by Pierre de Fermat, through the contributions by Torricelli, Viviani, Simpson, Heinen, and other researchers, to Weber’s intuition about a practical use of the results of that challenge, and its subsequent developments. Modern developments of the discipline are also reviewed. There is particular emphasis on the work of pioneering researchers who provided seminal contributions to the field.