European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063

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European Journal of Operational Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ejor

Production, Manufacturing and Logistics

Combining Wang–Landau sampling algorithm and heuristics for

solving the unequal-area dynamic facility layout problem
Jingfa Liu a,b, Dawen Wang a,b,∗, Kun He c, Yu Xue a,b
a
School of Computer and Software, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
b
Jiangsu Engineering Center of Network Monitoring, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
c
School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP) is the problem of placing facilities in a certain plant floor for
Received 8 April 2016 multiple stages so that facilities do not overlap and the sum of the material handling and rearrangement
Accepted 2 April 2017
costs are minimized. We describe a model, where the facilities have unequal-areas and the layout for
Available online 6 April 2017
each stage is produced on the continuous plant floor. The most difficulty of solving this problem consists
Keywords: in the lack of a powerful optimization method. Wang–Landau (WL) sampling algorithm is an improved
Global optimization Monte Carlo method, and has been successfully applied to solve many optimization problems. In this
Dynamic facility layout paper, we combine the WL sampling algorithm and some heuristic strategies to solve the unequal-area
Unequal-area DFLP. In the WL sampling algorithm, a vacant point strategy is applied to update layout at one stage. To
Wang–Landau sampling algorithm prevent overlapping of facilities and reduce the empty space among facilities, a pushing strategy and a
Group decision-making pressuring strategy are applied. We have tested the proposed algorithm on four groups of cases and the
Heuristic strategies
computational results show that the proposed algorithm is effective in solving the unequal-area DFLP.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Liu and Meller (2007) researched the continuous-representation-

Because of the important significance of saving the actual
production costs, the facility layout problem (FLP) is very early
to be studied. In the early time, the objective of the FLP is to
minimize the material handling costs by arranging facilities in
a static production environment. As material flows among fa-
cilities will not change, the layout problem is called the static
facility layout problem (SFLP) which has been studied by many
scholars. Mir and Imam (2001) employed a hybrid optimization
approach which contained a simulated annealing method and
an analytical method. Bozer and Meller (1997) researched the
distance-based facility layout problem, and proposed an alterna-
tive distance measure basing on the expected distance between
two facilities. Meller, Narayanan, and Vance (1999) proposed
some general classes of valid inequalities for a mixed-integer
programming (MIP) model of SFLP. They used these inequalities
in a branch-and-bound algorithm and moderately increased the
range of solvable problems. Motivated by the work of Meller et al.
(1999), Sherali, Fraticelli, and Meller (2003) presented an improved
MIP model and several effective solution strategies for the SFLP.
∗
Corresponding author at: School of Computer and Software, Nanjing University
of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
E-mail address: wangdw1993@163.com (D. Wang).
based SFLP, and proposed a genetic-algorithm-based heuristic
which combined the sequence-pair representation with the MIP
model. Anjos and Vannelli (2006) presented a mathematical-
programming framework based on the combination of two
new mathematical-programming models. Komarudin and Wong
(2010) proposed an ant system which used slicing tree repre-
sentation to easily represent the SFLP without too restricting
the solution space. Ulutas and Kulturel-Konak (2012) proposed a
clonal selection algorithm which had a new encoding and a novel
procedure to copy with dummy facilities to fill the empty space in
the plant floor. Gonçalves and Resende (2015) developed a hybrid
approach which combined a biased random-key genetic algorithm,
a novel placement strategy and a linear programming model.
Singh and Sharma (2006) and Drira, Pierreval, and Hajri-Gabouj
(2007) presented a literature review of the SFLP.
In today’s market, with increasing global competition and short
life cycle of production, material flows among facilities change
during the planning horizon, so that the problem becomes the
dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP). The dynamic facility layout
problem generally includes two categories: equal-area dynamic
facility layout problem and unequal-area dynamic facility layout
problem, which correspond to the facilities with equal-area and
facilities with unequal-area, respectively. Rosenblatt (1986) is the
first one to study the equal-area DFLP and proposed a heuristic

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 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063
optimization scheme based on dynamic programming. Afterwards,
some scholars have also studied it and put forward all kinds of
heuristic methods. Urban (1993) proposed a pair-wise interchange
procedure which made use of ‘forecast windows’ to find different
sets of good layout plans for the planning horizon. Baykasoglu
and Gindy (2001) proposed a simulated annealing algorithm with
an effective data structure and neighborhood generation mecha-
nism. Şahin and Türkbey (2009) presented a new hybrid heuristic
based on the simulated annealing approach supplemented with a
tabu list. Pourvaziri and Naderi (2014) presented a novel hybrid
multi-population genetic algorithm. Unlike the available previous
genetic operators, they designed operators to search only the
feasible space. Hosseini-Nasab and Emami (2013) proposed a
hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm which combined
a simple and fast simulated annealing process. Their algorithm
further explored the continuous solution space by using a coding
technique. Mckendall and Liu (2012) presented three tabu search
heuristics. The first is a simple tabu search heuristic, the second
adds diversification and intensification strategies to the first, and
the third is a probabilistic tabu search heuristic. Hosseini, Khaled,
and Vadlamani (2014) proposed a robust and simply structured
hybrid technique based on three heuristics: imperialist com-
petitive algorithm, variable neighborhood search, and simulated
annealing. Bozorgi, Abedzadeh, and Zeinali (2015) applied a data
envelopment analysis method and a tabu search-based algorithm
which used a dynamic tabu list and a diversification strategy to
find the most efficient layout. Ulutas and Islier (2015) studied the
equal-area DFLP in footwear industry and proposed a clonal selec-
tion algorithm based on affinity maturation and receptor editing
processes. Kouvelis, Kuawarwala, and Gutierrez (1992) addressed
this problem by using the concept of robust layouts, and proposed
a branch and bound method to generate the robust layouts for the
manufacturing systems. Li, Li, Ma, and Tang (2015) considered the
remanufacturing equal-area DFLP with uncertainties and proposed
a simulated annealing algorithm.
For the unequal-area DFLP, Montreuil and Venkatadri
(1991) first presented a proactive strategic methodology sustained
by a linear programming model. Yang and Peters (1998) put for-
ward a heuristic procedure based on the construction type layout
design algorithm. Dunker, Radons, and Westkamper (2005) pro-
posed a hybrid algorithm which combined dynamic programming
and a genetic algorithm. For each stage the genetic algorithm
evolved a population of layouts while the dynamic programming
provided the evaluation of the fitness of the layouts. McKendall
and Hakobyan (2010) developed a boundary search heuristic which
placed facilities along the boundaries of already placed facilities,
and used a tabu search method to improve the obtained solutions.
Jolai, Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, and Taghipour (2012) presented a
multi-objective particle swarm optimization method which found
the optimal scheme using a particle best position and a swarm
best position. Dong, Wu, and Hou (2009) considered the unequal-
area DFLP under dynamic business environment and proposed a
simulated annealing algorithm based on a shortest path model.
Mazinani, Abedzadeh, and Mohebali (2013) considered a new kind
of DFLP with flexible bay structure, in which facilities are assigned
to parallel bays in a plant floor, and proposed a genetic algorithm.
Ma, Cai, Zhang, and Li (2015) studied the unequal-area DFLP with
uncertain product demands and proposed an improved genetic
algorithm which combined triangular fuzzy number operation
and adaptive local search with genetic algorithm. For a review of
solution methodologies for the DFLP, one can see Balakrishnan and
Cheng (1998) and Kulturel-Konak (2007).
Although some approaches mentioned above have been applied
to solve the unequal-area DFLP, their efficiency still needs to
be improved. Wang–Landau (WL) sampling algorithm (Landau,
Tsai, & Exler, 2004; Liu, Hao, Li, Xue, Liu, & Huang, 2016; Wang
1053
& Landau, 2001) is an improved Monte Carlo algorithm. Unlike
conventional Monte Carlo simulations that generate a probability
distribution at a given temperature, the WL sampling method can
estimate the density of states accurately via a random walk, which
produces a flat histogram in energy space. There have been many
improvements and applications on the WL sampling algorithm.
For example, Schulz, Binder, and Müller (2003) proposed a simple
modification of the WL sampling algorithm. This modification
removed the systematic error that occurred at the boundary of the
range of energy over which the random walk took place. Seaton,
Wüst, and Landau (2010) used the WL sampling algorithm to de-
scribe the thermodynamic behavior of a continuous homopolymer.
Liu (2014) proposed an improved WL sampling method which
incorporated the generation of initial conformation based on the
greedy strategy and the neighborhood strategy based on pull-
moves into the WL sampling method to predict the protein struc-
tures on the face-centered-cube (FCC) hydrophobic-hydrophilic
(HP) lattice model. The most challenge of solving the DFLP is that
the function to be optimized is characterized by a multitude of
local minima separated by high-energy barriers. The WL sampling
method can visit the all accessible states of the system, which
means it can jump out of these high-energy barriers. Therefore,
the WL sampling method is an ideal global search algorithm for
solving the DFLP. In this paper, by combining the WL sampling al-
gorithm and some heuristics, we put forward a heuristic WL (HWL)
sampling algorithm. The numerical results show that the proposed
algorithm is an effective method for the unequal-area DFLP.
The structure of this paper is as follows. In Section 2, we
introduce the mathematical model of the DFLP. In Section 3, we
introduce the WL sampling algorithm and the heuristic strate-
gies. In Section 4, we list the computational results and make a
comparison. Section 5 is the conclusion of this paper.
2. Problem formulation
In this section, we provide a mathematical model of the
unequal-area DFLP. First, some notations for describing the math-
ematical model are presented.
Indexes
i, j Facility index, i, j = 1, …, N, where N = the number of
facilities
t Stage index, t = 1, …, T, where T = the number of stages
Parameters
Ctij Material handling cost per unit distance between facility
i and facility j in stage t
Rti Rearrangement cost of facility i in the beginning of stage
t
Ftij Material flow between facility i and facility j in stage t
Wti Shorter edge length of facility i in stage t
Lti Longer edge length of facility i in stage t
L Length of plant floor
W Width of plant floor
Ii Interior of facility i
Variables
xti , yti Centroid coordinate of facility i in stage t
lti , wti Length and width of facility i in stage t
dti Orientation of facility i in stage t (0: vertical, 1: horizon-
tal)

1 If facility i is rearranged in stage t (xt−1,i
rti = xti or yt−1,i = yti or dt−1,i = dti )
0 Otherwise
Next, a mathematical model of the equal-area DFLP is pre-
sented.
1054 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063

Objective: [10 0 0, 10 0 0+). The energy interval [ E

, E) is denoted by [E],
where E
rounds E down to its nearest integer, E rounds E up
Minimize : total cost E (X )

T 
N 
N 
= Cti j · Fti j (|xti − xt j | + |yti − yt j |) +
t=1 i=1 j>i
Constraints:
Ii ∩ I j = ∅ ∀i, j,
xti − 0.5lti ≥ 0 ∀t, i,
xti + 0.5lti ≤ L ∀t, i,
yti − 0.5wti ≥ 0 ∀t, i,
yti + 0.5wti ≤ W ∀t, i,
xti , yti , lti , wti ≥ 0 ∀t, i,
Here X represents a configuration and X = (x11 , y11 , d11 , …, x1 N ,
y1 N , d1 N; …; xt 1 , yt 1 , dt 1 , …, xtN , ytN , dtN; …; xT 1 , yT 1 , dT 1 , …, xTN ,
yTN , dTN ), where (xti , yti ) is the pick-up/drop-off location of facility
i in stage t and (xt 1 , yt 1 , dt 1 , …, xtN , ytN , dtN ) is a layout in stage
t, 1 ≤ t ≤ T, 1 ≤ i ≤ N. Objective (1) is to minimize the sum of
the material handling and rearrangement costs. Constraint (2) in-
dicates that there is no overlapping between any two facilities.
Constraints (3)–(6) make sure that the facilities are not placed
out of the plant floor. Constraint (7) is the constraint of variables’
range, and lti and wti are calculated as follows:
lti = Lti dti + Wti (1 − dti ) ∀t, i,
wti = Lti (1 − dti ) + Wti dti ∀t, i.
3. Solution procedure for the DFLP
In this section, we propose a heuristic Wang–Landau (HWL)
sampling algorithm for solving the DFLP with unequal-area facil-
ities. First, we introduce Wang–Landau sampling algorithm. Then,
some heuristic configuration updating strategies are put forward
to update the current configuration. Finally, the framework of the
proposed HWL is presented.
3.1. Wang–Landau sampling algorithm
Wang–Landau (WL) sampling algorithm is a novel Monte Carlo
(MC) algorithm and was proposed by Wang and Landau (2001).
It gets a flat histogram of energy by a random walk in the whole
energy space following a certain acceptance criterion, so as to es-
timate the density of states g(E(X)), i.e., the number of all possible
states (configurations) for an energy level E(X) of the system. The
total cost E(X) represents the energy in this paper. The algorithm
samples the energies of the whole energy space comprehensively
while obtaining the density of states g(E(X)) for the range of
possible energies. Because of the comprehensive sampling, we can
find the approximate global optimal value of the energies, and this
is the theoretical principle we apply the WL sampling algorithm
to solve the DFLP.
Before introducing the WL sampling algorithm to the DFLP, we
first give a partition for the energies. Considering that the values
of energies in range are positive real numbers in this paper, we
divide all possible energies of the configurations into numerable
intervals. For example, we divide [0, 10 0 0] into 10 0 0 energy
intervals [0, 1), [1, 2), …, [999, 10 0 0), and the numbers that are
bigger than 10 0 0 will be divided into the single energy interval
to its nearest integer. For example, E = 704.36 falls into energy
T 
N
interval [704, 705), which is denoted by [704.36].
Rti rti . (1)
The basic process of applying the WL sampling algorithm to
t=2 i=1
the DFLP is as follows. Since at the beginning of the algorithm
all possible energies and the density of states g(E(X)) are un-
known, we set respectively the density of states g(E(X)) and the
(2)
corresponding histogram to 1 when accessing to a new energy.
In the simulations on the DFLP, the new configurations can be
(3) generated by a heuristic configuration updating procedure (see
Section 3.2), but not all the new configurations can be accepted.
(4) The acceptance probability of a new configuration is proportional
to the reciprocal of the density of states g(E(X)) associated with
(5) the new configuration. Assume that the original configuration is
X1 , and the new configuration is X2 . The acceptance probability P
from X1 to X2 is as follows:
(6)
(7)  
g(E (X1 ))
p(X1 → X2 ) = min ,1
g(E (X2 ))
= min(eln(g(E (X1 )))−ln(g(E (X2 ))) , 1 ). (10)
If X2 is accepted, then g(E(X2 )) will be multiplied by a modifi-
cation factor fi , and the histogram function H([E(X2 )]) will add 1,
that is, g(E(X2 )) = fi ∗ g(E(X2 )) (ln(g(E(X2 ))) = lnfi + ln(g(E(X2 )))),
H([E(X2 )]) = H([E(X2 )]) +1 (the initial value of i is 0); otherwise,
g(E(X1 )) and H([E(X1 )]) will be updated as follows: g(E(X1 )) = fi ∗
g(E(X1 )) (ln(g(E(X1 ))) = lnfi + ln(g(E(X1 )))), H([E(X1 )]) = H([E(X1 )])
(8) +1. Because the value of the density of states g(E(X)) will become
so large that it will lead to the data overflow, we update g(E(X))
(9) with the formula that contains logarithm. The initial value of the
modification factor fi is set differently in different model. If the
value of f0 is too small, it will take a long time to find all the pos-
sible energies; conversely, if the value of f0 is too large, there will
be a statistical error. A value of e (2.7181...) is chosen for f0 in this
paper. The flatness of the histogram determines the convergence
of the WL sampling algorithm. In the simulations, we check the
flatness of the histogram every 103 MC steps, where a MC step
represents a new configuration generated by the algorithm. While
the histogram is flat, the density of states g(E(X)) will converge to
its true value by proportioning to the accuracy of the modification
factor ln(fi ). After this, we
 reduce the modification factor fi by a
modified formula: fi+1 = fi , and reset the values of all entries of
H([E(X)]) to 0. Then we start a new round of iteration. However, in
reality, it is hard to get the absolute flat histogram. The so-called
“flat histogram” in the WL sampling algorithm refers to the values
of all entries of H([E(X)]) are greater than the value that the
average of all entries of histogram <H([E(X)])> multiplies k (0 <
k < 1), where k is based on the complexity of the simulation as
well as the accuracy of g(E(X)) to determine. In this paper, we set
the value of k to 0.7. After the modification factor fi is less than a
threshold ffinal , the algorithm stops. At this time, g(E(X)) will also
converge to its true value by proportioning to the accuracy of the
modification factor ln(ffinal ). ffinal is the control parameter of the ac-
curacy of g(E(X)) and also determines the number of MC iterations
in the whole simulation process. If the value of ffinal is too small,
it will take a long time to terminate the simulation; conversely, if
the value of ffinal is too large, the density of states g(E(X)) will not
converge to its real value. In this paper, we set ffinal = 1.0 0 01.
In order to find the configuration with the lowest energy Emin ,
we record the energy and the corresponding configuration each
time we find a configuration with lower energy in the process of
the WL simulations.
 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063 1055

Fig. 1. The envelope rectangle of a layout.

3.2. Heuristic configuration updating procedure

In the WL sampling algorithm, each iterative step must update

the current configuration. To update the configuration, for the
layout in each stage, we use the combination of the following
strategies:

• vacant point strategy;

• pushing strategy;
• pressuring strategy.

where are described in the next sections.

Fig. 2. The overlapping distance between facility i and facility j.

3.2.1. Vacant point strategy

Before introducing the vacant point strategy, the concepts of
the envelope rectangle and the vacant point are given first. The
envelope rectangle is the rectangle that could envelop all facilities
exactly. The vacant point is the point that is inside envelope
rectangle, but not inside any facility. As shown in Fig. 1, the dotted
rectangle represents an envelope rectangle, and points in the
shaded region of the envelope rectangle can be selected as the
vacant points.
The vacant point strategy of updating the layout is descripted
as follows. First, generate randomly 100 vacant points in the
envelope rectangle. Then, choose the facility with the largest unit
material handling cost (UMHC) and place temporarily its centroid
at every vacant point with vertical and horizontal directions of fa-
cility. Here, the formula for calculating the unit material handling
cost of facility i in stage t is as follows:
N
j=1 Cti j · Fti j (|xti − xt j | + |yti − yt j |)
UMHCti = N
j=1 Fti j
f or i = 1, 2, . . . , N, t = 1, 2, . . . , T .
Next, calculate the unit material handling cost of the chosen
facility associating with each vacant point, and place formally the
centroid of the chosen facility at the vacant point where the unit
material handling cost of the chosen facility is the smallest. With
the positions of other facilities unchanged, finally we gain two
new layouts due to the two placing directions.
3.2.2. Pushing strategy
It is inadvisable that facilities overlap with each other after
executing the vacant point strategy. To make sure that constraint
(2) is satisfied, the pushing strategy is applied. In order to avoid
repetitive movement, a principle of to-up or to-right is used in the
pushing strategy, that is, the facility can only move to the up or to
the right. Suppose facilities i and j overlap each other. As shown in
Fig. 2, Atij labeled in Fig. 2(a)–(d) represents the overlapping
distance in the direction of the X-axis between facilities i and j
in stage t. Btij labeled in Fig. 2(a)–(d) represents the overlapping
distance in the direction of the Y-axis between facilities i and j in
stage t. Suppose we need to move facility j. The movement rules
are as follows.
If facilities i and j overlap each other as Fig. 2(a), we first check
whether Atij is smaller than Btij or vice versa. If Atij is smaller,
facility j will be moved to the right by Atij value. If Btij is smaller,
facility j will be moved to the up by Btij value. If facilities i and j
overlap as Fig. 2(b), and if Atij is smaller, facility j will be moved
to the right by Atij value; otherwise, facility j will be moved to the
up by Btij value. If facilities i and j overlap as Fig. 2(c) or (d) and
Atij is smaller, facility j will be moved to the right by Atij value;
otherwise, facility j will be moved to the up by Btij value.
The process of the pushing strategy is as follows. First, choose
the facility with the largest overlapping area. Then, move the
chosen facility according to the movement rules. If the chosen
facility overlaps with more than one facility, the facility which
has the minimum index is the reference of the chosen facility. If
there are other facilities that have the overlapping, this procedure
is repeated.
(11) We use an example to describe the process of the pushing
strategy. Suppose we have a layout as Fig. 3(a) in stage t. Facility
2 overlaps with facilities 1 and 3 and has the largest overlapping
area, so we choose facility 2 to move. Facility 1 has the minimum
index between facilities 1 and 3, and the overlapping between
facilities 2 and 1 is considered. Because Bt 12 is smaller than At 12 ,
facility 2 is moved to the up. The result of this movement is
shown in Fig. 3(b). As you can see, this movement leads to the
overlapping between facilities 2 and 4. We continue this pushing
procedure and solve the overlapping between facilities 2 and 4.
The final layout is shown in Fig. 3(c).
3.2.3. Pressuring strategy
After using the pushing strategy to prevent overlapping among
facilities, we may gain a layout where facilities are placed out
of the plant floor. To make the layout compact, we apply the
following pressuring strategy.
First, calculate the material handling cost (MHC) of each facility
in each stage by the formula:
1056 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063
Fig. 3. An example of pushing strategy.
Fig. 4. An example of pressuring strategy.

N
MHCti = Cti j · Fti j (|xti − xt j | + |yti − yt j |)
j=1
f or i = 1, 2, . . . , N, t = 1, 2, . . . , T .
Then, choose the facility with the largest material handling cost
and name it the basic facility. Move the candidate facility towards
the basic facility. Here, the candidate facility is the facility which is
nearest to the basic facility. There are two ways of the movement:
first vertically move and then horizontally move, and first hori-
zontally move and then vertically move. We choose the way by
which we could get more improvement in the material handling
costs of the layout. In each way of the movement, we move the
candidate facility until it touches another facility or its centroid is
aligned with the centroid of the basic facility. If these two cases
may happen, we choose the former in priority. If there are still
other facilities that can be moved, this procedure is repeated.
We use an example to describe the process of the pressuring
strategy. Suppose we have a layout as Fig. 4(a), and facility 4 is
the basic facility. It is obvious that facility 3 is nearest to facility 4,
so we move facility 3 towards facility 4. No matter which way we
choose for the movement, the movement will lead to a layout as
Fig. 4(b). The termination condition of the movement is that the
down edge of facility 3 touches the basic facility, and its right edge
touches facility 2. The next facility nearest to the basic facility is
facility 1. This facility can be first vertically moved until its up
edge touches the basic facility, and then be horizontally moved
with no obstruction until its centroid is aligned with the centroid
of the basic facility (see Fig. 4(c)). Facility 2 is vertically moved
until its down edge touches the basic facility. The final layout is
shown in Fig. 4(d).
3.2.4. Computation of rearrangement costs
We define the facility group as the combination of some
facilities. If the centroids of all facilities in the facility group are
unchanged relative to each other in two successive stages, we con-
sider the relative positions among these facilities are unchanged.
As long as the relative positions among facilities are unchanged
in two successive stages, we think the all facilities which are con-
tained in the facility group do not generate rearrangement costs.
We use an example to describe this computational process
of rearrangement costs. As shown in Fig. 5(a) and (b), because
the positions of facilities 1–4 change in two successive stages,
there are four rearrangement costs by expression (1). In fact, the
relative positions between facilities 3 and 4 are unchanged. We
take facilities 3 and 4 as a facility group. If we move the entire
layout upward shown in Fig. 5(b) until facilities 3 and 4 reach
the positions as same as the positions shown in Fig. 5(a), we can
obtain the layout shown in Fig. 5(c). Obviously, Fig. 5(b) and (c)
are isomorphic. If the layout in Fig. 5(c) is still a feasible layout
which satisfies constraints (2)–(9), Fig. 5(c) will lead to only two
rearrangement costs compared with Fig. 5(a). In the computational
process of rearrangement costs, we always choose the maximum
facility group that contains more facilities. This will reduce the
rearrangement costs of the layout.
(12)
3.2.5. Configuration updating process
We update a configuration by updating the layouts at different
stages in the configuration. For the first stage, we apply the vacant
point strategy on the original layout to get two temporary layouts
where the picked facility has two different placing directions.
Hereafter, we apply the pushing strategy on these two temporary
layouts to eliminate the overlapping among facilities, and use the
pressuring strategy to further get two compact layouts. Finally,
we calculate respectively the material handling costs of these two
compact layouts, and choose the layout with the smaller material
handling cost as the updated layout.
For other stages, first we copy the updated layout of the pre-
vious stage as the original layout of this stage. Then we apply the
vacant point strategy on the original layout to get two temporary
layouts, and apply the pushing strategy and the pressuring strategy
on these two temporary layouts to get two compact layouts with-
out overlapping. At this time, we calculate the material handling
costs and the rearrangement costs of these two compact layouts,
respectively. Here, the rearrangement costs are generated by
comparing the newly produced compact layouts with the original
 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063
Fig. 5. An example of computation of rearrangement costs in two successive stages.
Table 1
Comparison of computational results by five algorithms for case P6-6.
HGA (2005) TS/BSH (2010)
ReCost Cost Time (minutes) Cost Time (minutes)
19 6569.0 29.4 6648.3 27.7
50 – – – –
layouts and computed by the strategy of Section 3.2.4. The sums of
the material handling costs and rearrangement costs are the total
costs for these two compact layouts. We choose the smaller total
cost and compare it with the material handling cost of the original
layout. If the smaller total cost is less than the material handling
cost of the original layout, we set the compact layout with the
smaller total cost as the updated layout. Otherwise, repeat this
updating process starting from the vacant point strategy. If this
process is repeated more than 103 times and at every time we
do not gain an accepted layout, we set the original layout as the
updated layout.
3.3. Description of WL combining with heuristics
By incorporating the heuristic configuration updating procedure
into the WL sampling algorithm, a heuristic Wang–Landau (HWL)
layout algorithm for the unequal-area DFLP is presented. The
detailed computational procedure is outlined below.
Step 1: Generate an initial configuration X1 (where the layout
for each stage is as same as that in Yang & Peters, 1998). Calculate
E(X1 ). Let the optimal configuration Xmin = X1 , and the total cost
of optimal configuration Emin = E(X1 ). Initialize the set of intervals
containing visited energies (i.e., total costs) S = {[E(X1 )]}, the
state density function g(E(X1 )) = 1, and the histogram function
H([E(X1 )]) = 1. Let i = 0, l = 0, k = 0.7, f0 = e.
Step 2: Update current configuration X1 by the heuristic con-
figuration updating procedure, and gain a new configuration X2 .
Compute E(X2 ). Let g(E(X2 )) = 1, H([E(X2 )]) = 1, and l = l + 1.
/ S, let S = S ∪ {[E (X2 )]}.
Step 3: If [E (X2 )] ∈
Step 4: If random (0, 1) <min(eln(g(E (X1 )))−ln(g(E (X2 ))) , 1 ), accept
X2 , and let X1 = X2 , E(X1 ) = E(X2 ), ln(g(E(X2 ))) = lnfi + ln(g(E(X2 ))),
H([E(X2 )]) = H([E(X2 )]) + 1, go to step 5; otherwise, do not accept
X2 and let ln(g(E(X1 ))) = lnfi + ln(g(E(X1 ))), H([E(X1 )]) = H([E(X1 )])
+1, go to step 6.
Step 5: If E(X2 ) < Emin , let Xmin = X2 , Emin = E(X2 ).
Step 6: If l% 10 0 0 = 0, go to step 7; otherwise, go to step 2.
Step 7: If H ([E (X )] )k < H ([E (X )] ) > for all visited energy
intervals [E (X )] ∈ S, then
 go to step 8; otherwise go to step 2.
Step 8: Let fi+1 =, fi , i = i + 1.
Step 9: If fi < 1.0 0 01, then the algorithm stops, output Xmin and
Emin ; otherwise, for each [E(X)] in S, let H([E(X)]) = 0, but g(E(X))
remains unchanged, and go to step 2.
1057
MOPSO (2012) MPSO (2015) HWL (in this paper)
Cost Time (minutes) Cost Time (minutes) Cost Time (minutes)
– – 6763.7 39.2 6523.5 4.6
6659.4 8.4 – – 6597.0 5.2
4. Computational results and discussion
In order to evaluate the performance of the HWL sampling
algorithm, we apply the algorithm on four groups of cases. The
first group contains two classical dynamic facility layout cases:
P6-6 and P12-4 (Yang & Peters, 1998). The second group contains
two optimality comparison test cases created in this paper. The
third group contains a dynamic facility layout case with practical
application and the fourth group contains three single-stage facil-
ity layout cases. The algorithm is compiled by using JAVA language
and all experiments are carried out on a PC with an Intel Core 2
Duo, 2.94 gigahertz CPU and 2.0 gigabytes RAM. For each case, we
run the HWL sampling algorithm ten times independently.
4.1. Computational results of two classical dynamic facility layout
cases
The first classical dynamic facility layout case is to place 6 fa-
cilities in 6 stages (P6-6), and the second is to place 12 facilities in
4 stages (P12-4). These two cases were first presented in Yang and
Peters (1998), and were further calculated in Dunker et al. (2005),
Jolai et al. (2012), McKendall and Hakobyan (2010), and Asl and
Wong (2015). Jolai et al. (2012), used 50 units and 200 units for
rearrangement cost of each facility (the following brief write down
for ReCost) on the first and second cases, respectively, as in Yang
and Peters (1998); but it was 19 and 50 units for the first and sec-
ond cases in Dunker et al. (2005), Mckendall and Hakobyan (2010),
and Asl and Wong (2015). In this paper, in order to compare the
results with the above calculations, we use not only 19 and 50
units for P6-6, but also 50 and 200 units for P12-4. The 30 × 30
and 50 × 50 plant floors are chosen for P6-6 and P12-4, respec-
tively, and the material handling cost per unit distance is set to 1.
The computational results by the HWL sampling algorithm
for case P6-6 are shown in Table 1. As shown in the table, the
best objectives and running times obtained by the HWL are
uniformly better than results by other four algorithms for both
19 and 50 ReCost. In fact, for ReCost of 19, the best objective
obtained by the HWL is reduced by (6569.0 − 6523.5)/6569.0 =
0.69% compared with that by the hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA)
in Dunker et al. (2005), reduced by (6648.3 − 6523.5)/6648.3
= 1.88% compared with that by the tabu search and boundary
search heuristic (TS/BSH) in McKendall and Hakobyan (2010),
and reduced by (6763.7 – 6523.5)/6763.7 = 3.55% compared
with that by the modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) in
1058 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063

Fig. 6. P6-6 layouts by the HWL for stages 1–6 (from left to right, from top to Fig. 7. P6-6 layouts by the HWL for stages 1–6 (from left to right, from top to bot-
bottom) with objective 6523.5. tom) with objective 6597.0.

Table 2
and n is the running times. For ReCost of 19, the deviation
Statistics of results by the HWL sampling algorithm for case P6-6.
between the best and worst objectives is 96 and the standard
ReCost Best Worst Average Standard deviation is small. For ReCost of 50, the deviation between the
objective objective objective deviation
best and worst objectives is 86 and the standard deviation is small
19 6523.5 6619.5 6582.1 26.1 too. This means the objectives obtained by the HWL sampling
50 6597.0 6683.0 6648.3 29.6
algorithm are not scattered for both ReCosts of 19 and 50.
The computational results by the HWL sampling algorithm for
case P12-4 are shown in Table 3. From the table, the objective
Asl and Wong (2015). The layouts for objective 6523.5 are shown in obtained by the HWL is a little worse than that by TS/BSH for Re-
Fig. 6. Facility 2 is replaced in the beginning of stage 4, and others Cost of 50. But the objectives are better than those by HGA, MPSO
are consistent with the original, which leads to one rearrangement and MOPSO for ReCosts of 50 and 200, respectively. In fact, for
in the layouts. For ReCost of 50, the best objective obtained by the ReCost of 50, the best objective obtained by the HWL is increased
HWL is reduced by (6659.4 − 6597.0)/6659.4 = 0.94% compared by (26950.5 − 26845.5)/26950.5 = 0.39% compared with that
with that by the multi-objective particle swarm optimization by TS/BSH, but reduced by (27748.0 − 26950.5)/27748.0 = 2.88%
(MOPSO) in Jolai et al. (2012). The layouts for objective 6597.0 compared with that by HGA and (28826.6 – 26950.5)/28826.6
are shown in Fig. 7. These 6 layouts keep the same positions in = 6.51% compared with that by MPSO. In terms of computation
different stages, which means there are no rearrangement costs. time, the HWL overmatches other algorithms for ReCost of 50. The
The statistics of the computing results for case P6-6 are shown layouts for objective 26950.5 are shown in Fig. 8. Ten facilities are
in Table 2. Table 2 shows the best and worst objectives, the replaced in the beginning of stage 2 except facilities 10 and 11.
average objectives, and the standard deviations of these objectives Besides, positions of all facilities are kept invariant in other stages.
over 10 independent runs. The standard deviation is calculated by There are 10 rearrangements in all layouts. For ReCost of 200,
the following formula: the best objective obtained by the HWL is reduced by (28115.5 −
 27924.5)/28115.5 = 0.68% compared with that by MOPSO, while
n
i=1 (ai − ā )2 the computational time of the former is a litter longer than that
(13)
n of the latter. The layouts for objective 27924.5 are shown in Fig. 9.
Here, ai represents the objective by the HWL sampling algo- There is none rearrangement in all layouts, which is similar to the
rithm in the ith run; ā represents the average of these objectives layouts of objective 6597.0 for case P6-6.
 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063 1059

Table 3
Comparison of computational results by five algorithms for case P12-4.

HGA (2005) TS/BSH (2010) MOPSO (2012) MPSO (2015) HWL (in this paper)

ReCost Cost Time (minutes) Cost Time (minutes) Cost Time (minutes) Cost Time (minutes) Cost Time (minutes)

50 27748.0 160.0 26845.5 82.0 – – 28826.6 185.1 26950.5 57.8

200 – – – – 28115.5 50.5 – – 27924.5 63.4

Table 4
Statistics of results by the HWL sampling algorithm for case P12-4.

ReCost Best Worst Average Standard

objective objective objective deviation

50 26950.5 27581.0 27374.4 176.1

200 27924.5 28321.0 28057.5 93.2

The statistics of the computing results for case P12-4 are

shown in Table 4. Table 4 shows the best and worst objectives, the
average objectives, and the standard deviations of these objectives
over 10 independent runs. For ReCost of 50, the deviation between
the best and worst objectives is 630.5, and the standard deviation
is small. This means the objectives obtained by the HWL are not
scattered. For ReCost of 200, the deviation between the best and
worst objectives is 396.5, which is much smaller than that for
ReCost of 50. The standard deviation is small too, it means the
objectives obtained by the HWL are not scattered as the former.

4.2. Optimality comparison test

Two optimality comparison test cases are created to illustrate

Fig. 8. P12-4 layouts by the HWL for stages 1–4 (from left to right, from top to
bottom) with objective 26950.5.
Fig. 9. P12-4 layouts by the HWL for stages 1–4 (from left to right, from top to
bottom) with objective 27924.5.
the deviations between the results by the HWL and the optimal
results. The first case, which places 3 facilities in 3 stages, is
denoted as P3-3. The second case, which places 4 facilities in 2
stages, is denoted as P4-2. For P3-3, we define a 12 × 9 plant
floor, i.e., length of the plant floor along the X-axis is 12 and width
of the plant floor along the Y-axis is 9. The ReCost is 15 units and
the dimensions of facilities and the material flows among facilities
in each stage are presented in Appendix 1. For P4-2, a 10 × 11
plant floor is defined, and the ReCost is 9 units. The dimensions of
facilities and the material flows among facilities in each stage are
presented in Appendix 2.
For P3-3, we can construct an optimal configuration by refer-
ring Eqs. (1)–(9). The objective of this optimal configuration is
1510.5 and the corresponding layouts are shown in Fig. 10, where
two facilities are reset in the beginning of stage 2 except facility 3,
and positions of all facilities in stage 3 are consistent with those in
stage 2. This case is also solved by the proposed HWL sampling al-
gorithm. Over 10 independent runs, the best objective obtained by
the HWL is equal to that of the optimal configuration by referring
Eqs. (1)–(9), and the best layouts by the HWL are the same as lay-
outs of the optimal configuration, which means the HWL sampling
algorithm can find the optimal configuration for case P3-3.
For P4-2, we can also construct an optimal configuration by
referring Eqs. (1)–(9). The objective of the optimal configuration is
827.5 and the corresponding layouts are shown in Fig. 11. Further-
more, we use the proposed HWL sampling algorithm to solve case
P4-2. By generating a legitimate initial layout, the best layouts with
the objective 848.5 are obtained by the HWL over 10 independent
runs. The best layouts by the HWL are shown in Fig. 12. The
deviation between the best result by the HWL and the objective of
the optimal layouts is 21. We can see from Fig. 11, in the beginning
of stage 2 we reset facility 4 so that its centroid is aligned with
the centroid of facility 1, and an optimal configuration (Fig. 11) is
obtained. However, it is hard for the HWL to search this optimal
configuration. Note that in the beginning of stage 2, as facility 3
1060 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063
Fig. 10. P3-3 optimal layouts for stages 1–3 (from left to right) with objective 1510.5.
Fig. 11. P4-2 optimal layouts for stages 1–2 (from left to right) with objective 827.5.
Fig. 12. P4-2 layouts by the HWL for stages 1–2 (from left to right) with objective
848.5.
has the largest UMHC according to Eq. (11), the centroid of facility
3 is reset within vacant region and thereafter the pushing strategy
and the pressuring strategy are executed. Obviously, it could not
yield the optimal layout in stage 2 as shown in Fig. 11, so the
layout in stage 1 remains invariant according to the configuration
updating process described in Section 3.2.5. But the configuration
by the HWL is sub-optimal, demonstrating the effectiveness of the
HWL in solving hard case for the unequal-area DFLP.
4.3. Computational results for a dynamic facility layout case with
practical application
We give a dynamic facility layout case with practical applica-
tion. There is a plant which is mainly responsible for production
of automotive battery start-up line. The dimension of the plant is
24 × 22 square meters. In accordance with the principle of similar
facilities placed together, this plant is divided into 8 regions (i.e.,
facilities). The names and dimensions of all regions are presented
in Appendix 3. The production is divided into three stages, and
plans of each stage are as follows: product 4300 class-A batteries,
10 0 0 class-B batteries, 2400 class-C batteries in the first stage;
product 1600 class-A batteries, 0 class-B batteries, 5500 class-C
batteries in the second stage; product 20 0 class-A batteries, 580 0
Table 5
Comparison of computational results by four algorithms for three single-stage cases.
Case FLOAT (1993) HOT (2001) MPSO (2015) HWL (in this paper)
P8 – – 208.7 193.1
P11 – – 1335.6 1280.1
P20 1333.8 1287.3 1264.2 1264.6
class-B batteries, 500 class-C batteries in the third stage. The
material flows among all regions and the matrix of material
handing cost per unit distance at each stage are summarized in
Appendix 3. It costs 500 dollars if one region is reset.
The sum of costs by the HWL for this case is 236821.5 dollars,
and the output layouts are shown in Fig. 13, where positions of all
regions in the second stage are consistent with the original and
seven regions are reset except region 1 in the third stage, which
leads to 7 rearrangements in the layouts. To test the difference
of the effectiveness of the HWL on the DFLP relative to the SFLP,
we amount the material flows of three stages in the plant to the
material flows of single stage, that is, we convert the DFLP into a
SFLP which is a special DFLP with one stage. The sum of costs by
executing the HWL for the SFLP is 257622.0 dollars. The former
is reduced by (257622.0 – 236821.5)/257622.0 = 8.1% in product
cost compared with the latter, which shows the significance of the
DFLP. The optimal configuration by the HWL over ten independent
runs for the SFLP is shown in Fig. 14.
4.4. Computational results for three single-stage facility layout cases
To check further the effectiveness of the HWL, the computa-
tional results for three single-stage facility layout (i.e., SFLP) cases
are presented in this section. These three cases which include 8
facilities, 11 facilities, and 20 facilities are denoted as P8, P11, P20,
respectively (Asl & Wong, 2015). The material handling cost per
unit distance is set to 1 for each of these cases. The dimensions
of the plant floors are chosen as 12 × 12, 15 × 15, and 14 × 14,
respectively.
The computational results by the HWL sampling algorithm for
the three single-stage cases are shown in Table 5. The objectives
obtained by the HWL are better than the results by the modified
particle swarm optimization (MPSO) in Asl and Wong (2015) for
both P8 and P11. In fact, it decreases (208.7 − 193.1)/208.7 = 7.5%
for P8 and (1335.6 − 1280.1)/1335.6 = 4.2% for P11 compared with
those by MPSO. The improvements obtained by the HWL for P20
are (1333.8 − 1264.6)/1333.8 = 5.2% and (1287.3 − 1264.6)/1287.3
= 1.8%, in contrast to FLOAT in Imam and Mir (1993) and HOT
in Mir and Imam (2001), respectively. It only increases (1264.6 −
1264.2)/1264.6 = 0.03% for P20 compared with that by MPSO. The
optimal layouts by the HWL over 10 independent runs for P8, P11,
and P20 are shown in Fig. 15, Fig. 16, and Fig. 17, respectively.
The statistics of the computing results are shown in Table 6.
In the table, the best and worst objectives, the average objectives,
and the standard deviations over 10 runs are presented. For all
the three single-stage cases, the standard deviations are small
 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063 1061

Fig. 13. Layouts by the HWL for stages 1–3 (from left to right) with objective 236821.5 in dynamic case with practical application.

Fig. 14. Layout by the HWL with objective 257622.0 in single-stage case with prac-
tical application.
Fig. 17. P20 layout by the HWL with objective 1264.6.

indicating that the objective values obtained by the HWL are not
scattered.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, we have discussed the dynamic facility layout

problem (DFLP) with unequal-area facilities which aims at mini-
mizing the sum of the material handling and rearrangement costs.
Firstly, we present a mathematical model to describe this problem.
Then we combine Wang–Landau (WL) sampling algorithm and
some heuristics to solve the problem. The WL sampling algorithm
obtains a flat energy histogram by walking in the energy space
Fig. 15. P8 layout by the HWL with objective 193.1.
randomly, which can estimate the density of states of the system
accurately. It will reach the near lowest energy when estimating
the density of states. Four groups of cases are used to test the pro-
posed algorithm, and the results indicate the effectiveness of the
algorithm. Furthermore, the proposed method will be beneficial
for the DFLP with variable shapes and areas of facilities through-
out the time horizon, and can be generalized to the research and
application on multi-objective group decision-making.

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foun-

dations of China (Grant Nos. 61373016, 61472147, 61373064 and
61403206), the Major Program of the National Social Science Foun-
dation of China (Grant No. 16ZDA047) and the Natural Science
Fig. 16. P11 layout by the HWL with objective 1280.1. Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20141005).

Table 6 Appendix 1. Parameters of optimality comparison test case

Statistics of results by the HWL sampling algorithm for three single-stage cases. P3-3
Case Best objective Worst objective Average objective Standard deviation

P8 193.1 198.0 195.9 1.3

Dimensions of facilities in P3-3.
P11 1280.1 1302.4 1288.6 6.1
Facility 1 2 3
P20 1264.6 1313.8 1289.7 16.9
Dimension (Li , Wi ) (6, 4) (6, 4) (9, 6)
1062 J. Liu et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 262 (2017) 1052–1063

Direction of Transporting material/item

Material flows of stage 1 for P3-3. transporting
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3
material
1–3 4300 1600 200
Facility 1 2 3 1–4 10 0 0 0 5800
1 0 50 1 2–4 2400 5500 500
2 50 0 40 3–4 4300 1600 200
3 1 40 0 3–5 0 0 700
3–7 3400 7100 6300
Material flows of stage 2 for P3-3. 4–5 7700 7100 6500
4–6 4300 1600 200
5–4 3400 5500 6300
Facility 1 2 3 5–6 4300 1600 200
6–3 3400 5500 6300
1 0 50 40 6–7 4300 1600 200
2 50 0 1 7–8 7700 7100 6500
3 40 1 0
Matrix of material handing cost per unit distance (Cij ).
Material flows of stage 3 for P3-3.
Region 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Facility 1 2 3 1 0 0.5 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.5 0.3 0.4

2 0.5 0 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.4
1 0 20 50
3 0.2 0.6 0 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.6 0.2
2 20 0 1
4 0.3 0.5 0.4 0 0.5 0.4 0.2 0.3
3 50 1 0
5 0.3 0.5 0.3 0.5 0 0.5 0.5 0.6
6 0.5 0.4 0.2 0.4 0.5 0 0.5 0.3
7 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.5 0 0.5
8 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.3 0.6 0.3 0.5 0

Appendix 2. Parameters of optimality comparison test case

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