A HEURISTIC-PROCEDURE FOR THE SINGLE-ROW FACILITY LAYOUT PROBLEM

The single-row facility layout problem arises when assigning service r ooms along a corridor, storing files on the cylinders of a disk, and i n flexible manufacturing systems where the efficiency of automated gui ded vehicles forces the layout to be linear. This paper describes a co nstructive heuristic which provides solutions to the single-row facili ty layout problem so as to minimize the materials handling cost. The h euristic assigns the facilities with the largest number of moves betwe en them to adjacent locations on the line. The heuristic differs from earlier algorithms since at any stage of the process, more than two fa cilities can be added to the solution sequence. The performance of the heuristic is compared to other methods proposed for the single-row fa cility layout problem. Results show that the heuristic performs well i n terms of computational efficiency and solution quality.