Tabu search heuristic for efficiency of dynamic facility layout problem

The facility layout problem (FLP) is a well-researched problem of finding positions of departments on a plant floor such that departments do not overlap and some specific critical criteria involved in FLP are optimized. In addition, the facility layout dramatically influences the efficiency of material handling within a manufacturing system. In order to ensure optimal performance within a manufacturing system, the facility layout should reflect changes throughout time. However, the static facility layout problem with constant material flows between departments may not be a realistic scenario because a manufacturing facility is a dynamic system that constantly evolves. On the other hand, layout problem has multi-objective nature, and it is necessary to apply various criteria and goals for determining a good facility layout. As a result, this research is about determining a solution for dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP) with equal departments by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) with consideration of some specific criteria which are cost, adjacency, and distance requested. Cost as a negative criterion is minimized and used as an input, whereas adjacency and distance requested are considered positive criteria and used as output of DEA model. In the proposed algorithm, at first, the initial layout is generated, and then its neighborhood is created by the pair exchange and reverse strategy. By applying tabu search heuristic using diversification strategy which includes “frequency-based memory,” “penalty function,” and “dynamic tabu list size” to the DEA model, the most desired efficient layout is obtained. Two data sets taken from the relevant literature are used to test and evaluate the performance of the proposed heuristic. Computational experiments show that the proposed heuristic outperforms other heuristics presented in relevant literature, and the most efficient layout is achieved.