A Perturbation Scheme to Improve Hillier’s Solution to the Facilities Layout Problem

This paper describes a new heuristic, the Revised Hillier procedure, for solving the facilities layout problem. It incorporates the effective features of the well-known Hillier procedure in combination with 3-way and 4-way exchanges to extend the neighborhood over which the search for a solution is conducted. Performance of the new heuristic is compared with that of CRAFT and the original Hillier procedure using a set of “standard” test problems; the Revised Hillier procedure yields solutions of higher quality while requiring only modest increases in computer run time.