Use of bind variables

[Brian Fitzpatrick <FITZPBM@KELLYSERVICES.COM>]

I am looking into a possibility for optimizing an SQR report which is
running against an Oracle 8 database.  The report is run lets say 500 times
initiated from a UNIX shell script - each time a parameter for a location
is passed to the report, and the report query is identical except for a
location number.

I have been building the query in a fashion such as this:
.
.
let $where_loc = 'where location = ''' $param '''

begin-select
last_name         &lname
first_name        &fname
from employee
[$where_loc]

As I understand it, because of the WHERE clause, the query is physically
different each time and will be reparsed by the query optimizer each time
the report is run.  HOWEVER, I am told that if the query were to use a bind
variable like below, it would only be parsed once:

begin-select
last_name         &lname
first_name        &fname
from employee
where location = :loc

The question is:  can this be done, and if so, how do I supply a value to
the bind variable :loc ?  I've tried a begin-sql  / end-sql block prior to
the report query, but the bind variable only exists for the duration of the
PL/SQL block.

Does this approach make sense for optimization, is this workable, will it
buy us much of  a savings?  Are there other areas I should be looking at
(indexing perhaps)?   Any input is appreciated, thanks.