Facility Location with Nonuniform Hard Capacities
Martin Pal

Abstract:

In this paper we give the first constant factor approximation algorithm for the Facility Location Problem with nonuniform, hard capacities. Facility location problems received a great deal of attention in recent years. Approximation algorithms have been developed for many variants. Most of these algorithms are based on linear programming, but the linear programming techniques developed thus far have been unsuccessful in dealing with hard capacities.

A local-search based approximation algorithm by Korupolu et al and Chudak and Williamson \cite{KoPlRa98b,ChuWil99} is known for the special case of hard but uniform capacities. We present a local-search heuristic that yields an approximation guarantee of $9+\epsilon$ for the case of nonuniform hard capacities. To obtain this result we introduce new operations that are natural in this context. Our proof is based on network flow techniques.

(Joint work with Eva Tardos and Tom Wexler)