I have 64 buildings in my company that I need to break down into 8 equal regions based on drive time. 8 regions with 8 buildings in each region for a total of 64 buildings.

Using Mappoint, Is it possible for the program to tell me the best grouping of the 8 regions. Basically I want the program to tell me the 8 most efficient groups based on drive time no matter which building i'm going to within the 8 assuming I start in the middle of the 8.

I know this is a little confusing, but hopefully someone can help me through this. Thanks in advance

So is it to have regions with the best drivetime, so that if you have a point somwere, that it is falling into the region of the range of buildings with the best drivetime to that point ?

My main goal is to have the 8 most efficient groups. The 8 buildings which are shortest distance from each other.

Some of my thoughts are based on shortest average distance between the 8 and maybe the smallest standard deviation.

Hi,

If the distance from the bird eye of view is good then you can use DistanceTo method. So you calculate distance from each building to each building and then you can setup the zones.

What do you mean by "zones"

Also, I'm working on Mappoint 2006 and it doesnt seem to work with excel. Everytime I use this:

Dim objApp As New MapPoint.Application

an error occurs and it asks me to debug it. any clue?

Thanks a lot for your help

Hi,

I mean regions (was thinking in my own language I guess
What is the exact error ?

You've probably found a solution or an alternative now, but our MPCluster can do something very similar. It can find the cluster a locations, but it would be based on straight line (as the crow flies) distances rather than drive time. We did i vestige the possibility of drive times but it would basically take far too long to calculates (days or weeks for typical applications). Cluster quality would also have to be sacrificed.

Anyway, MPCluster costs US$100 and there's a free 14 day trial download. See MPCluster: Cluster Analysis for Microsoft MapPoint for further information, the trial download, and purchase options.

Richard