The Capacitated K-Center Problem

Abstract

The capacitated $K$-center problem is a fundamental facility location problem, where we are asked to locate $K$ facilities in a graph, and to assign vertices to facilities, so as to minimize the maximum distance from a vertex to the facility to which it is assigned. Moreover, each facility may be assigned at most $L$ vertices. This problem is known to be NP-hard. We give polynomial time approximation algorithms for two different versions of this problem that achieve approximation factors of 5 and 6. We also study some generalizations of this problem. (Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-96-39)