GRASP with Path-Relinking for Facility Layout

This paper proposes a mathematical formulation for the facility layout problem (FLP) based on the generalized quadratic assignment problem (GQAP). The GQAP is a generalization of the NP-hard quadratic assignment problem (QAP) that allows multiple facilities to be assigned to a single location as long as the capacity of the location allows. As a case study, we adapt the GRASP with path-relinking (GRASP-PR) heuristic introduced in Mateus et al. (J. Heuristics 17:527–565, 2011) for the hospital layout problem (HLP). In the HLP, we are given a set of areas in a hospital where medical facilities, such as surgery and recovery rooms, can be located and a set of medical facilities, each facility with a required area, that must be located in the hospital. Furthermore, we are given a matrix specifying, for each ordered pair of facilities, the number of patients that transition from the first to the second facility. The objective of the assignment is to minimize the total distance traveled by the patients. We illustrate our algorithm with a numerical example.