A spring-embedding approach for the facility layout problem

Abstract

The facility layout problem is concerned with finding the most efficient arrangement of a given number of departments with unequal area requirements within a facility. The facility layout problem is a hard problem, and therefore, exact solution methods are only feasible for small or greatly restricted problems. In this paper, we propose a spring-embedding approach that unlike previous approaches results in a model that is convex. Numerical results demonstrating the potential of our model and the efficiency of our solution procedure are presented.

Keywords:

• facility layout
• non-linear programming
• optimisation
• augmented Lagrangian multiplier method

View correction statement:

Erratum: A spring-embedding approach for the facility layout problem

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jors.2010.25.

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jors.2010.25.

Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Czeslaw Smutnicki for his helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. Dr Ignacio Castillo gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the University of Alberta School of Business Pocklington Research Allowance to partially support this research.