Multi-attribute evaluation and selection of sites for agricultural product warehouses based on an Analytic Hierarchy Process

Site selection for companies is a complex and unstructured problem that must be analyzed carefully and properly, since a localization error could drive to bankrupt. This problem has been discussed widely and effectively using multi-attribute methods in a manufacturing context, but it has been little studied in agribusiness. The goal of this work is a methodological approach oriented to evaluate optimal locations of new agri-food warehouses. Furthermore, a literature review is developed, analyzing the location problem and the attributes and techniques most widely used applied to agribusiness, and a case-study is presented in order to exemplify the methodological proposal. The multi-attribute technique called Analytic Hierarchy Process has been selected as the basis for the research, and it is applied to the real case study analyzed: the selection of a site for a new banana distribution warehouse. Six generic criteria have been analyzed: accessibility to the area, distance, cost, security of the region, local acceptance of the company, and its needs. The process includes the assignment of attributes to each one of the generic criteria, as well as the assessment of their importance levels. Three different areas of Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Mexico DF have been evaluated for the case-study, and the methodological proposal has been utilized to determine the best option.