Solving a large scale districting problem: A case report (Q1112735)

The paper deals with the problem of defining the territories for 168 sales agents of a German manufacturer of consumer goods. About 1400 postal areas constitute the basic geographical units. The problem is solved by means of a location-allocation approach involving a standard code of primal network algorithm as well as a new heuristic for resolving split areas. Numerical results and the implementation of the procedure as a planning tool are presented.