On the Feasibility of Establishing a Northern-Western Australian Beef Abattoir as a Facility Location Problem

The importance of food production is ever increasing. Livestock production represents a complex logistics problem where agistment, transport conditions, storage, seasonality, time to market, and road infrastructure play a significant role. We present an overview of commonly-used logistic tools that reflect how Operational Research models and methods can be used in beef supply chains for strategic and operational planning purposes. As part of our contribution, we present a case study of beef production in northern and western Australia and introduce a framework to assist planners in taking optimal capital investments. The case study we present is interesting because it is highly sensitive to external environmental and economic factors. The proposed model is formulated as a facility location problem which simultaneously considers selection of segments of the road network to upgrade as well as the selection of abattoirs from a set of potential sites in the Rangelands of Western Australia as well as for Queensland and the Northern Territory. The model captures transport accessibility and abattoir set up costs and provides insight on the fundamental question of resource allocation between facilities and links. We present results on abattoir selection and outline directions of research.