EURO Working Group on Locational Analysis
| Formation | 1984 |
|---|---|
| Legal status | Working group |
| Purpose | To promote locational analysis |
Region | Europe |
Parent organization | Association of European Operational Research Societies |
| Website |
ewgla |
The EURO Working Group on Locational Analysis (EWGLA) is a working group devoted to Locational Analysis within EURO, the Association of European Operational Research Societies. It was born during the first EURO Summer Institute, held at Brussels, in July/August 1984, devoted to the subject of Location theory. At that time the main aim of starting up the working group was to provide a network of people working together and to keep continuity in the exchanges between the Summer Institute's participants. Since that time the group has known important growth and broadened its scope and purpose. Friendship among its members continues however to play an important role. The subjects of interest to the group are of many kinds, centering on the optimal choice of locations for one or more objects (usually called facilities), within any framework (the classical settings being discrete, network and planar). Many other fields have direct connections with location analysis and Location theory, either by subject such as Transportation planning and the Vehicle routing problem, Supply chain management, environmental studies, layout and design, data and Cluster analysis, or as techniques, like Mathematical optimization (linear, integer, non-linear, convex, global, ...), Multi-criteria decision analysis, Approximation theory, Computational geometry, Statistics, etc.
EWGLA has become a vehicle of communication between all persons interested in location and related topics in Operations research in Europe and abroad. The major goal is to stimulate the exchange of information and collaboration in research and applications, and to promote the ideas and methods developed within the field.
History
EWGLA is one of the working groups of EURO, the Association of European Operational Research Societies. The Group was founded in 1984 during the EURO Summer Institute on Location theory held in Brussels.
Governance
The group is managed by an Advisory Board of 3 members that changes every three years. The current board members are: Sergio García Quiles, Jörg Kalcsics and Olivier Péton. [3]
Membership
The group is suitable for people who are presently engaged in location theory and supply chain management, either in theoretical aspects or in business, industry or public administration applications. Currently (2016), the group has about 250 members from 29 countries.
Conferences
EWGLA holds conferences on a regular basis (once every 18 months). An abstract booklet is distributed to the participants at each meeting.
Publications
In several cases, the annual conference is followed by a peer reviewed special issue of an international journal, presenting a selection of the contributions presented at the meeting. The latest special issues is due to appear in the EURO Journal of Computational Optimization,.[4]
A newsletter is emailed to all members every three months.