At first sight discrete and fractional programming techniques appear to be two com- pletely unrelated fields in operations research. We will show how techniques in both fields can be applied separately and in a combined form to particular models in location analysis. Location analysis deals with the problem of deciding where to locate facilities, con- sidering the clients to be served, in such a way that a certain criterion is optimized. The term "facilities" immediately suggests factories, warehouses, schools, etc., while the term "clients" refers to depots, retail units, students, etc....

At first sight discrete and fractional programming techniques appear to be two com- pletely unrelated fields in operations research. We will show how techniques in both fields can be applied separately and in a combined form to particular models in location analysis. Location analysis deals with the problem of deciding where to locate facilities, con- sidering the clients to be served, in such a way that a certain criterion is optimized. The term "facilities" immediately suggests factories, warehouses, schools, etc., while the term "clients" refers to depots, retail units, students, etc....