A chain of home health care firms in Louisiana needs to locate a central office from which to conduct internal audits and other periodic reviews of its facilities. These facilities are scattered throughout the state, as detailed in the following table. Each site, except for Houma, will be visited three times each year by a team of workers, who will drive from the central office to the site. Houma will be visited five times a year.
(Map Coordinates)
City X Y
Covington 9.0 3.5
Donaldsonville 7.3 2.8
Houma 7.6 1.7
Monroe 4.8 8.4
Natchitotches 2.6 6.5
New Iberia 5.3 2.1
Opelousas 4.8 3.3
Ruston 3.8 8.2
a.) For the location of the new central office, the coordinates should be near: x = ___
b.) y should = ____?
c.) The center-of-gravity approach minimizes the distance traveled assuming straight lines. This approach ignores geographical features that would tend to violate the straight line constraint such as (select all that apply):
A.) Rivers B.) Trips C.) Non-Straight Roads D.) Bridges