Tools of soft computing as applied to the problem of facilities layout planning

The layout of temporary facilities in a construction site deals with the selection of their most efficient layout in order to operate efficiently and cost effectively. The layout design seeks the best arrangement of facilities within the available area. In the design process of the layout, many objectives must be considered to effectively utilize people resources, equipment, space, and energy. This study proposes a soft-computing-based approach to improve the layout process of facilities. The main objective is on obtaining the closeness relationship values between each pair of facilities in a construction site. To achieve this, an integrated approach, using fuzzy set theory and genetic algorithms, is used to investigate the layout of temporary facilities in relation with the planned building(s) in a construction site. An example application is presented to illustrate the proposed approach and the results are then discussed along with recommendations for further work. Depending on the importance of relationships among the various facilities in the construction site, this study is expected to provide engineers with an appropriate tool to compare and evaluate different layouts and select the most appropriate and efficient one.