A simulated annealing algorithm for allocating space to manufacturing cells

This paper describes a procedure that can be used by facility designers to allocate space to manufacturing cells. The procedure takes into consideration the area and shape requirements of individual cells as well as any occupied regions on a floor plan. A layout is represented as a collection of rectangular partitions organized as a slicing tree. The solution method involves searching through the space of all slicing trees of a given structure. An effective simulated annealing algorithm capable of minimizing inter-cell traffic flow and enforcing geometric constraints is presented. The algorithm is compared with two local search methods with encouraging results.