An efficient Variable Neighborhood Search for the Space-Free Multi-Row Facility Layout problem

Resumen

The Space-Free Multi-Row Facility Layout problem (SF-MRFLP) seeks for a non-overlapping layout of departments (facilities) on a given number of rows satisfying the following constraints: no space is allowed between two adjacent facilities and the left-most department of the arrangement must have zero abscissa. The objective is to minimize the total communication cost among facilities. In this paper, a Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) algorithm is proposed to solve this -Hard problem. It has practical applications in the context of the arrangement of rooms in buildings, semiconductor wafer fabrication, or flexible manufacturing systems. A thorough set of preliminary experiments is conducted to evaluate the influence of the proposed strategies and to tune the corresponding search parameters. The best variant of our algorithm is tested over a large set of 528 instances previously used in the related literature. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves the state-of-the-art methods, reaching all the optimal values or, alternatively, the best-known values (if the optimum is unknown) but in considerably shorter computing times. These results are further confirmed by conducting a Bayesian statistical analysis.

Publicación
European Journal of Operational Research
Alberto Herrán González
Alberto Herrán González
Profesor Titular de Universidad
J. Manuel Colmenar
J. Manuel Colmenar
Catedrático de Universidad

Mis intereses de investigación se centran en las metaheurísticas aplicadas a problemas de optimización. He trabajado en diferentes problemas de optimización combinatoria aplicando algoritmos trajectoriales como GRASP o VNS. Además, estoy muy interesado en las aplicaciones de la Evolución Gramatical, específicamente en el dominio de los modelos y la predicción, como alternativa a los enfoques de aprendizaje automático.

Abraham Duarte
Abraham Duarte
Catedrático de Universidad

Mi carrera investigadora se ha centrado en el desarrollo de nuevos algoritmos y técnicas de Inteligencia Computacional (metaheurísticas) y su aplicación a diferentes problemas en Ciencia e Ingeniería desde que me incorporé a la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) en el octubre del año 2000.