Experimental analysis of simulated annealing based algorithms for the layout problem

In this paper, results from an experimental analysis involving the 2-way and 3-way exchange algorithms, a modified penalty algorithm, the simulated annealing algorithm and a hybrid simulated annealing algorithm are presented. The hybrid simulated annealing algorithm uses the modified penalty algorithm to generate an initial solution and then improves it using simulated annealing. It is tested on single-row layout problems with facilities of unequal area and multi-row layout problems with facilities of equal area. The algorithm produced solutions better than those previously reported in the literature for two of the larger single-row problems and five multi-row layout problems. For all the other single-row problems and eight of ten multi-row layout test problems, it produced the best known solutions. The hybrid simulated annealing algorithm appears to produce better quality solutions than the simulated annealing and tabu navigation algorithms, but requires more computation time than simulated annealing.