In reality, firms are constantly changing their input suppliers and output markets in response to changes in input and output market prices.
There is one final issue relating to the Weber model which needs to be addressed. Industrial location problems are inherently evolutionary in their nature as firms respond to new markets and products by changing their locations, and by changing the people they buy from and the people they sell to. Secondly, the model allows us to see location as an evolutionary process, in which changes in factor prices can engender changes in location behaviour, which themselves can change the supply linkages between suppliers, firms, and markets. A first key feature of the Weber model is therefore that it allows us to understand the factor price conditions under which other areas will become more attractive as locations for investment. The model is designed to help us understand the advantages which geography confers on particular locations as sites for investment. The reason for employing the '&angular case of the two input locations and one output market location is that this particular spatial structure is simply the easiest two-dimensional model to explain. Although our analysis here has been developed primarily with only two input source locations and one output market location, the Weber location-production arguments and the associated isodapane analysis are perfectly applicable to the case of firms with multiple input and output locations.
This type of geometrical arrangement, in which a firm has multiple input sources and multiple okput market locations, is the norm for firms in reality. Once again, this will move the Weber optimum away from point H, and will also alter the inter-regional.equilibriumwage gradient. Now we have a Weber location-production problem with M, M, M3, M4,and M, as spatial reference points. or example, in order to guarantee sufficient supplies of steel inputs for the newly expanded automobile market of (M3+ M,),the firm may decide to continue to purchase steel from both MI and M4,as well as purchasing plastic from M. Under these conditions, it may be that a new optimum location of H arises, in which the firm at H buys from two supplier locations M, and M, and sells at two market locations, M3and Ms.More complex arrangements are possible. The firm could switch markets completely from M,to Ms.Alternatively,it could decide to supply both markets M, to M. At point G, it becomes advantageous for the firm to serve market point M,rather than M3.This is because M, is nearer to G than M,and - t&) > - t3d3).Therefore, the firm makes a greater profit from selling automobiles to market M,than to market M. With the points M4,M,and M,as the spatial reference points, the new Weber optimum is G.
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