CONTRIBUTIONS TO SUBSTANTIATING THE DECISION TO RELOCATE AN INDUSTRIAL BUSINESS

The relocation of production by which a company partially transfers its production facilities, from one country to another, or from one city to another is a topical issue for industrial affairs. Also known as „offshoring” or „delocalization”, it is one of the concrete and visible aspects of the globalization of the economy. Encouraging businesses, especially producers, to move between states, or between areas of a state, remains a popular policy of local or national economic development. Moving the company is a project that involves a great deal of responsibility, because of the many details that need to be solved. Typically, the decision to move facilities to certain locations or geographical areas is determined by a number of fundamental factors such as: production costs, complexity of markets, access to labor, finance and lending. Frequently it is considered that relocation is not just the answer to a single risk factor (climate, pollution), but a complex of decisions initiated and based on a number of social, economic, environmental and policy factors. In line with research on this topic, the strongest influence on the relocation of an enterprise is its expansion and the need to increase profits. Theories on the relocation of industrial companies are a special case of the theory of location, which is focused on the geographic location of economic activity and the importance of location to support growth of the company. Another important reason for the decision to relocate is cost reduction, due to wage differences, economies of scale, energy prices and other economic and financial factors. Even if it is a long-term decision, sustained by considerable financial support, the criteria of physical, economic, social or political nature with more or less predictable behavior, put managers in the position of always being careful, about the consequences of the emplacement on costs, to take account of a number of unidentified or incorrectly quantified situations and risks, requiring a reconsideration of the geographical situation of the undertaking. The article aims at identifying, grouping and eliminating overlaps, between the criteria considered in the literature at emplacement selection, in case of relocation of production. Optimizing the site selection decision means finding solutions or sets of solutions optimal relocation of production. The solution to the optimization problem is the answer to the question: what is the optimal location option, so that all identified criteria are respected in different proportions? To substantiate the decision to relocate production, the problem of choosing the optimal site was approached as a multi-attribute type, for which those methods were selected and applied, that led to reliable results but at the same time constituting easy tools to be applied by an interested company.