A Hybrid Algorithm for Optimising Facility Layout

Despite the reported effectiveness of analytical algorithms in facility layout planning, a detailed literature survey suggests a lack of new analytical methods in recent years. This paper focuses on open space facilities layout planning that involves modules with constant aspect ratios. We propose a construction-cum-improvement algorithm involving a novel combination of a boundary search-based heuristic placement and steepest descent-based analytical improvement. In the construction phase, the algorithm places a new module at the optimal location on the boundary of a previously constructed cluster of modules. In the improvement phase, the algorithm alternates between boundary search and steepest descent moves until it converges to a local optimum. Experiments with well-known test problems indicate that the proposed algorithm produced solutions superior both to published results and to those produced by VIP-PLANOPT, a popular, oft-cited and commercially available layout planning and optimisation software.