The article is devoted to the creation of efficient regional logistic infrastructure that has currently a special relevance. The additional task of this problem is a warehouse network formation. The efficient location of warehouses is one of the priority objectives for cross-border regions as it allows them to benefit from membership in a global supply chain, promotes the creation of additional jobs and, finally, leads to the growth of Gross Regional Product (GRP). The authors offer an approach to determine the location of distribution centres and warehouses in the territory of the regions of the Russian Federation. This approach allows solving the problem of the efficient location of warehouse network in a region taking into account its key indicators of socioeconomic development. The implementation of the approach identified the indicators that have a significant impact on a choice of the location of warehouses of a region. Methodological framework of the conducted research includes the methods of ABC and cluster analyses. That provides the identification of the cities and municipal districts of a region, in the territory of which it is expedient to locate warehouses. The developed approach was tested on the example of the Volgograd region. The solution of the problem of warehouse network in this region belongs to the priority one, considering its geographical position and industrial capacity. The analysis of indicator values for the period of 2010–2014 by means of the methods of classical and modern ABC analysis as well as the two-stage cluster analysis allowed the territorial binding of the warehouse network in the Volgograd region. Further, the research showed that when splitting the cities and municipal districts of the region into clusters, the greatest influence is made by such indicators as investments into fixed capital, goods turnover of the motor transport and transportation of goods by the motor transport.

The article discusses determining the location of the key logistics infrastructure in regions in order to reduce the distribution network’s costs, increase the region’s transit potential and investment appeal, and integrate the region into the global supply chain. We suggest the methodological approach to developing the models of the region’s logistics infrastructure. It efficiently connects transport and storage networks in the region and allows determining the capacity of the key infrastructure. As the criterion, we consider the total costs of delivering the material flow to the consumer. The method includes two stages. At the first stage, using the region’s main socio-economic indicators, we determine the cities and districts, where the placement of the infrastructure will be more profitable. To solve this problem we suggest implementing the two-step cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, and ABC methods. The joint use of those methods allows achieving a coherent result that ensures the optimal choice of areas for locating the main elements of warehouse (distribution center, and distribution and sorting warehouses) and transport networks (car fleets and terminals). The second stage involves geo-referencing of the infrastructure on the administrative territorial units, defined at the first stage. For determining the location and capacity of the distribution and sorting warehouses, we propose to apply mathematic programming, using the total costs of the delivery and transshipment of goods as the criterion. For organizing the transport infrastructure, linked to the generated warehouse network, we suggest an approach, which allows minimizing cargo shipping’s costs and car fleet and terminals’ maintenance. To solve the optimization problems we suggest using the method of separable programming and branch-and-bound method. The article demonstrates the appliance of the proposed method on the example of Volgograd oblast. The obtained results can be used to form the region’s logistics infrastructure.