Facilities layout design by genetic algorithms

Genetic algorithms (GAs) are a class of adaptive search techniques which ha ve gained popularity in optimisation. In particular they have successfully been applied to NP hard problems such as those resulted in mathematical mod elling of facilities design problems. The typical steps required to impleme nt GAs are: encoding of feasible solutions into chromosomes using a represe ntation method, evaluation of fitness function, setting of GAs parameters, selection strategy, genetic operators, and criteria to terminate the proces s. This paper reports on finding of a research in design of a GA solving th e quadratic assignment formulation of equal and unequal-sized facilities la yout problems. Comparison is made with solutions of several test problems r eported in the literature. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.