A heuristic method for the multi-story layout problem

This paper presents a heuristic procedure designed expressly for solving a large layout problem in a multi-story setting, where the objective is to minimize total fixed and interaction costs. This is achieved by decomposing the original facilities layout problem into several similar but smaller problems, thus enabling solution of problems with as many as 150 facilities in reasonable time. Some of the novel features of the procedure described are the use of a heuristic K-median subroutine to obtain groupings of facilities, and a simple and fast exchange-improvement method. Computational results for randomly generated problems compare the effectiveness of this method with the space planning heuristic method of Liggett and Mitchell.