Host: The City Planning Institute of Japan
In this article, we developed a branch office location model of a business service firm. This model is based on the two-echelon inventory allocation model considering stochastic demand. Firstly, we confirmed validity of our model through reproducing three typical location patterns extracted by factor analysis, which are strongly concentrated location, dispersed location and moderately concentrated location. Secondly, we supposed location environmental changes by the progress of ICT, and calculated the change of branch office location. Thirdly, we extended the model for headquarters location and assessed the effect of inter-firm linkage to the concentration to Tokyo. As a result, it was showed that the location of business service firm will proceed to be concentrating on a few large cities.
