Facility layout problems typically consist of partitioning a given area into departments with pre-specified (possibly unequal) areas such that the sum of weighted distances between pairs of departments is minimized.
Most versions of layout are known to be hard combinatorial problems, and globally optimal solutions have been attained only for instances with up to eleven departments. My research in this area develops new mathematical optimization models for the problem in one, two, and three dimensions that find high-quality layouts, often with a guarantee of how close the layouts are to global optimality.
Book Chapter
- M.F. Anjos and F. Liers. Global Approaches for Facility Layout and VLSI Floorplanning. In: Handbook on Semidefinite, Cone and Polynomial Optimization, M.F. Anjos and J.B. Lasserre (eds), International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, Frederick S. Hillier (ed.), Springer, 2012, 849-877
Research Articles
- M.F. Anjos and M.V.C. Vieira. Mathematical Optimization Approaches for Facility Layout Problems: The State-of-the-Art and Future Research Directions (invited review). European Journal of Operational Research, 261, 2017, 1-16
- M.F. Anjos and M.V.C. Vieira. An Improved Two-Stage Optimization-Based Framework for Unequal-Areas Facility Layout. Optimization Letters, 10(7), 2016, 1379-1392
- P. Hungerländer and M.F. Anjos. A Semidefinite Optimization-Based Approach for Global Optimization of Multi-Row Facility Layout. European Journal of Operational Research, 245, 2015, 46-61
- S. Bernardi and M.F. Anjos. A Two-Stage Mathematical-Programming Method for the Multi-Floor Facility Layout Problem. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 64, 2013, 352-364.
- I. Jankovits, C. Luo, M.F. Anjos, and A. Vannelli. A Convex Optimisation Framework for the Unequal-Areas Facility Layout Problem. European Journal of Operational Research, 214(2), 2011, 199-215
- M.F. Anjos and G. Yen. Provably Near-Optimal Solutions for Very Large Single-Row Facility Layout Problems (invited paper). Optimization Methods and Software, 24(4), 2009, 805-817
- C. Luo, M.F. Anjos, and A. Vannelli. A Nonlinear Optimization Methodology for VLSI Fixed-Outline Floorplanning. Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, 16(4), 2008, 378-401 (invited paper)
- M.F. Anjos and A. Vannelli. Computing Globally Optimal Solutions for Single-Row Layout Problems Using Semidefinite Programming and Cutting Planes. INFORMS Journal on Computing, 20(4), 2008, 611-617
- K. Vorwerk, A. Kennings, and M.F. Anjos. VLSI Floorplan Repair Using Dynamic Whitespace Management, Constraint Graphs, and Linear Programming. Engineering Optimization, 40(6), 2008, 559-577
- M.F. Anjos and A. Vannelli. A New Mathematical Programming Framework for Facility Layout Design. INFORMS Journal on Computing, 18(1), 2006, 111-118
M.F. Anjos, A. Kennings, and A. Vannelli. A Semidefinite Optimization Approach for the Single-Row Layout Problem with Unequal Dimensions. Discrete Optimization, 2(2), 2005, 113-122.
This paper was a Top Cited Paper in the journal Discrete Optimization for the period 2005-2010.
- M.F. Anjos and A. Vannelli. An Attractor-Repeller Approach to Floorplanning. Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, 56(1), 2002, 3-27