| Abstract: | Cost minimization criteria are applied to a study of the optimal location of plants for the manufacture of service-industry machines, including street-cleaning equipment, laundry, and dry-cleaning machines. Future national and regional demand for such machines is estimated. The matrix technique is used to identify the economic region for which the aggregate cost of production and transportation of service-industry machines would be minimized. That region is found to be the Volga-Vyatka region, where the estimated cost of producing 315 million rubles worth of service-industry machines is put at 19.5 million rubles. The author does not necessarily exclude the location of manufacturing plants in other regions, if the purpose is to provide employment, as in areas of depleted mineral deposits of the Urals and the Donets Basin or in the agricultural districts of the Southwest and Central Asia. |
