Solving the failure-to-fit problem for plant layout by changing department shapes and sizes

The problem of assigning positions to unequal fixed size and shape departments within a given plant area has prompted numerous research efforts in recent years. Most of the published papers discuss techniques that place departments in such a way that the local cost of material flow between departments is minimized. Many of these techniques assume that there exists at least one feasible layout. When no such layout exists, a failure-to-fit problem arises. In this paper, we present a new method, which combines the existing layout techniques with heuristic search techniques to construct a solution to the failure-to-fit problem by changing the size and/or shape of the departments in a systematic manner without the help of humans. Experimental results show that the proposed technique is able to produce high quality and practical solutions.