An Approximate Algorithm to Solve Facility Layout Problem

In this paper, an approximate algorithm is proposed to solve facility layout problem (FLP) which is formulated as quadratic assignment problem (QAP). In the proposed approach, linear assignment problem (LAP) is formulated which is solvable in polynomial time. The proposed heuristic is applied to solve FLP from the set of LAP solution. To evaluate the performance of the heuristic a comparison between optimal and heuristic solution is also provided. The approach is tested on numerous benchmark problems available in literature. An encouraging comparative performance of this procedure is thus reported.