Solving facility layout problems with a set of geometric hard-constraints using Tabu Search

Abstract

This paper approaches a computational solving of the industrial layout problem considering a set of hard-constraints not handled in previous works. The intention here has been to provide a new consistent benchmark problem that may help researchers to test their proposed algorithms. In order to handle the experiments, the computational optimization tool AVOLI (Visual Environment for Industrial Layout Optimization) is utilized. By using this computational tool, the provided hypothetic new facility layout problem mimicking a real one is solved in two steps: first a constructiveheuristic-based initial solution is generated and then Tabu Search (TS) heuristic is used to improve it. © 2006 Springer.