Toward guiding the selection of a layout procedure

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assist facility designers decide when to use the graph‐theoretic (GTH) approach to develop a block layout and when to seek another alternative that requires a lesser effort. Difficulties encountered when a GTH block layout is developed from an adjacency graph could force designers to sacrifice or change some of the adjacencies of the adjacency graph in the GTH block layout. Consequently, the value of the objective function of a GTH block layout could become less than what would be expected from the GTH approach.Design/methodology/approachA computational study is performed to assess the value of the objective function of block layouts produced by the GTH approach when adjacencies of the adjacency graph are deleted or changed in the GTH block layout and two of the procedures in the literature.FindingsThe computational study reveals that the magnitude of the decline in the value of the objective function of the GTH block layout renders it comparable to values obtained by the two procedures selected from the literature.Originality/valueThe results of the study could motivate layout designers to resort to various approaches to develop a block layout rather than sacrifice some adjacencies of the adjacency graph in the GTH block layout, which would adversely affect its objective function value.