A neural network approach to facility layout problems

A near-optimum parallel algorithm for solving facility layout problems is presented in this paper where the problem is NP-complete. The facility layout problem is one of the most fundamental quadratic assignment problems in Operations Research. The goal of the problem is to locate N facilities on an N-square (location) array so as to minimize the total cost. The proposed system is composed of N × N neurons based on an artifical two-dimensional maximum neural network for an N-facility layout problem. Our algorithm has given improved solutions for several benchmark problems over the best existing algorithms.