Solution of placement and routing problems in telephone exchange unit designs

One problem in the design of electromechanical exchange units consists in arranging a large number of interconnected objects in positions forming a given structure. The authors describe in the present paper how this problem can be solved with placement and routing heuristics. The real-like problem is briefly reported and the optimization problems are stated formally. Two different approaches to their solution are presented and discussed with reference to the computational effort required for each. Some illustrative examples of improved designs are also given.