Search

The multi-objective unequal area facility layout problem (UA-FLP) is the problem of placing facilities with different areas in a plant so that facilities satisfy some given objectives and constraints. This paper built a multi-objective optimization model based on minimizing the material handling costs and maximizing the closeness rating scores, and proposed a heuristic algorithm (HA) to solve the multi-objective UA-FLP. The algorithm adopted the heuristic layout updating strategy to update the layouts, and used the combination of the local search based on the adaptive gradient method and the heuristic facility deformation strategy to deal with the intrusive constraint between any two different facilities. The proposed heuristic algorithm combined the local search based on the Pareto optimization and the global search based on the niche technology to obtain Pareto-optimal solutions of the problem. Using two representative instances from the literature to test the performance of the algorithm, the experimental results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm is an effective method for solving the multi-objective UA-FLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic facility layout problem is the problem of placing facilities in a certain plant for multiple stage's. Nowadays, most of researches for the dynamic facility layout problem focus on the discrete models. According to its characteristics and requirements, this paper established a continual model for the unequal area dynamic facility layout problem. The greatest challenge in solving the dynamic facility layout problem consists in lacking a high-performance optimization method. The Wang-Landau algorithm is an improved Monte Carlo method. By combining the Wang-Landau algorithm, the vacant point strategy, pushing strategy and pressuring strategy, this paper proposed a heuristic Wang-Landau algorithm. The proposed algorithm had been tested on instances from the literature. The computational results show that the heuristic Wang-Landau algorithm is effective method for solving the dynamic facility layout problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]