A New Approach to the Solution of Facility Layout Problems with Filled Function Method

Abstract

Facility layout problems are generally solved by stochastic methods in the literature. The large number of iterations used in these methods is quite costly in terms of solution time. In this study, in order to get rid of this disadvantage, the facility layout problem was solved using the filled function method, which is known to be very successful in solving global optimization problems. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the filled function method, the classical linear facility layout problem was handled in a non-linear manner and the problem was deliberately made more difficult. In order to use the filled function method, the facility layout problem was transformed into an unconstrained and multimodal (including more than one local minima) global optimization problem by using the hyperbolic smoothing technique and the penalty function method. Thus, in this first study in the literature where a deterministic method is combined with the solution of the facility layout problem, it is shown that the non-convex facility layout problem can be solved with the filled function method with very few iterations and short solution times.