A New Optimization via Invasive Weeds Algorithm for Dynamic Facility Layout Problem

The dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP) is the problem of finding positions of departments on the plant floor for multiple periods (material flows between departments change during the planning horizon) such that departments do not overlap, and the sum of the material handling and rearrangement costs is minimized. In this paper a new optimization algorithm inspired from colonizing weeds, Invasive Weeds Optimization (IWO) is utilized to solve the well-known DFLP. IWO is a simple algorithm which uses basic characteristics of a colony of weeds such as proliferation, growth and competition. A set of reference numerical problems is taken in order to evaluate the efficiency of the algorithm compared with the Dynamic Programming method which had been applied to solve the addressed problem. In order to verify the efficiency of the proposed algorithm a wide range of experiments are carried out to compare the proposed algorithm. Computational results have indicated that the DIWO algorithm is capable of obtaining optimal solutions for small and medium-scaled problems very efficiently.