A monarch butterfly optimization for an unequal area facility layout problem

Unequal area facility layout problems deal with the placement of departments in a particular area. In these problems, unsettled rectangular-shaped blocks with an aspect ratio limitation are arranged in a given space. This has been widely studied for facility planning design and operating efficiency. Therefore, many metaheuristic approaches have been suggested to determine optimal solutions. In this study, monarch butterfly optimization, a recently developed algorithm, is presented to solve an unequal area facility layout problem. A slicing tree representation is used to form a layout structure as well as greedy acceptance, which accelerates the monarch butterfly optimization's search performance. A set of well-known instances from existing studies is tested to evaluate the algorithm's effectiveness. Meaningful results are obtained from various categories. The proposed algorithm generates solutions that match the best results from previous research, and it provides such solutions within a comparable amount of time.

Automated summary

This study presents a method using the Monarch Butterfly Optimization algorithm to solve unequal area facility layout problems, achieving satisfactory results in various categories. The proposed algorithm generates solutions that match the best results from previous research.