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In this paper, we propose a new hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm based on simulated annealing supplemented with tabu list for the Multi Objective Facility Layout Problem (MOFLP). It is a SA approach supplemented with a tabu list. The main advantage of this approach is that a short term memory provided by the tabu list can be used to avoid solution re-visits while preserving the stochastic nature of the SA method. The goal of the new hybrid heuristic algorithm is to find the solutions forming the set of efficient solutions (pareto optimal set) of the MOFLP's in a relatively short time. The hybrid meta-heuristic is illustrated with a practical example of plant with 8 departments and 4 objectives. An efficient set of layouts corresponding to pre-determined weights are obtained. And also the set of efficient pareto-optimal solutions of the problem are determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's market conditions, increasing global competition, rapid changes in technology and shorter life cycle of product the facility layout to be evaluated as the dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP). The purpose of DFLP is to assign the departments to locations for a multi-period planning horizon so that the sum of the material handling and rearrangement costs is minimized. DFLP is generally formulated as a quadratic assignment problem (QAP) which is NP-hard. The larger the size of the problem, the harder to find the optimal solution. In this paper, a simulated annealing (SA) heuristic is developed to solve the DFLP. To test the performance of the proposed SA heuristic, a set of problems from literature is used. The results obtained show that the proposed heuristic is very effective for DFLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]