Note—A Note on “Comparison of Computer Algorithms and Visual Based Methods for Plant Layout” by M. Scriabin and R. C. Vergin

Abstract

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On the use of flow dominance in complexity measures for facility layout problems

“…CRAFT was able to obtain a twelve percent improvement in the cost of the 135 % flow dominance problem, but was much less effective in the other three problems, they concluded that layout problems having flow matrix data with a coefficient of variatism in excess of 200 % can probably be solved by inspection of the flow matrix or some other approximation techm.que, while those with lower flow would benefit from a computer approach. This 200 % limit has subsequently been regarded as valid by some authors (Block ( 1977), Buffa ( 1976b) and has been partially or completely rejected by others (Scriabin and Vergin 1981 for the 10-facility problem we obtained a value of 201.7% comparable to the 201 %reported by Vollmann and Buffa (1966), while the 20-facility problem yielded a flow dominance of 251.2% comparable to the reported 252 %. (We were unable tq check the reported flow dominance of 519% for the 22-facility problem, since the paper by Buffa, Armour and Vollmann (1964) only gives a partial extract of the original flow matrix).…”

“…Vollmann and Buffa (1966) conducted a computational experiment on four example layout problems which, in comb th the reported flow dominance values, paved the way for many confusing and utmost conflicting papers, replies and rejoinders on the potential use of flow dominance and some derived complexity measures to determine the choice between computer algorithms and visual based layout methods (Block ( 1977(Block ( , 1979. Buffa' (1976b), Coleman (1977Coleman ( ), S and (1975Coleman ( , 1976Coleman ( , 1981, Trybus and Hopkins (1980)).…”

“…Flow dominance was defined as the coefficient of variation of the flow data, computed from the flow matrix elements as (100 :x standard deviation/mean). The conclusion sugwhich its a coefficient of variation, gested was that a flow the flow on or by us one of the so-called sible use of flow dominance in comp ty ratings to determine the choice between computer algorithms and visual based plant layout methods (Block (1977(Block ( , 1979, Buffa (1976), Coleman (1977), Gupta and Deisenroth (1981), Lewis and Block (1980), Scriabin and Vergin (1981), Trybus and Hopkins (1980)), to determine the extent to which flow dominance and other complexity measures can affect the computational time of a branchand-bound algorithm for the quadra~ic assignment problem (Mojena, Vollmann…”

Erratum

“…Coleman [12] added his reservations about the results. Block [13] showed that more research should be carried out. Sometimes it would be necessary to uncover the hidden pattern of the flow characteristics and use this to help to determine the layout.…”

Measuring Human Performance on Clustering Problems: Some Potential Objective Criteria and Experimental Research Opportunities

“…During the 1970s and 1980s, operations research and management science specialists were particularly interested in comparing the performances of human subjects to computer algorithms on a type of quadratic assignment problem related to the location of departments within a facility (Block, 1977;Coleman, 1977;Herroelen & Van Gils, 1985;Scriabin & Vergin, 1975;Trybus & Hopkins, 1980). Subjects were provided with information regarding the flow (or interaction) between each pair of q departments, which enabled them to place pairs of departments with high interactions close to one another in the layout.…”