Facilities layout design optimization with single loop material flow path configuration

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Abstract
Here we formulate the facilities layout design optimization problem for a single loop material flow path configuration. Because of the NP-bard nature of the overall search space, we employ a genetic approach to sample the decomposed search spaces. In addition we analyse the following features of the problem: (1) we estimate lower bounds for the unidirectional flow problem along the loop by analysing the bidirectional flow problem; (2) we intelligently sample the search space by designing a knowledge-augmented genetic operator for layout cases with very low flow path dominance because the regular genetic search does not perform very well in such cases; and (3) we exploit qualitative constraints for reducing travel distances in highly circuitous flow paths.