The facility layout problem is a well researched one. However few effective and user friendly approaches have been proposed. Since it is an NP hard problem, various optimization approaches for small problems and heuristic approaches for the larger problems have been proposed. For the most part the more effective algorithms are not user friendly. On the other hand user friendly methods have not ...

A facility layout problem is concerned with determining the best position of departments, cells, or machines on the plant. An efficient layout contributes to the overall efficiency of operations. It’s been proved that, when system characteristics change, it can cause a significant increase in material handling cost. Consequently, the efficiency of the current layout decreases or is lost and it ...

In this paper we discuss two particular layout problems, namely the Single-Row Equidistant Facility Layout Problem (SREFLP) and the Single-Row Facility Layout Problem (SRFLP). Our aim is to consolidate the two respective branches in the layout literature. We show that the (SREFLP) is not only a special case of the Quadratic Assignment Problem but also a special case of the (SRFLP). This new con...

The facility layout problem is typically solved in what is referred to as a “top-down approach” of block layout design followed by detailed layout determination. However, a number of research efforts recently have challenged this approach, producing a “bottom-up approach to the facility layout problem” (Meller et al. 2004). In this paper we consider the bottom-up approach, applying a tighter fo...