Note—“A Perturbation Scheme to Improve Hillier's Solution to the Facilities Layout Problem”: A Clarification

Solutions to Nugent's plant location problems may be improved by using square plant shapes. These improved results were inadvertently reported by Picone and Wilhelm (Picone, C. J., W. E. Wilhelm. 1984. A perturbation scheme to improve Hillier's solution to the facilities layout problem. Management Sci.30 1238–1249.) as solutions to Nugent's problems, which involve rectangular plants. Hopefully, this clarification will stimulate research to define optimal relationships between plant shape and layout.