Humans vs. Computer Algorithms for the Plant Layout Problem

An experiment with plant layout formulated as a quadratic assignment problem gave the following results: (1) The CRAFT algorithm does as well as human subjects in solving the plant layout problem; (2) CRAFT does better as problem size increases if the human subjects have no prior knowledge of the computer solution values; (3) there is no breakpoint in relative problem solving ability between humans and computers at 200% flow dominance (the coefficient of variation of the flow matrix expressed as a percent); (4) the point at which the computer becomes better, as opposed to equally good, is more clearly indicated by problem size than by flow dominance; (5) humans can solve problems with high flow dominance and problems with near-zero flow dominance better than they can solve problems with low flow dominance, though the computer is still at least as good across all levels of flow dominance.