A flower pollination algorithm for the double-floor corridor allocation problem†

This research explores the double-floor corridor allocation problem (DFCAP), which deals with the optimal arrangement of departments over two floors and then place them along both sides against a corridor. This problem is a natural extension of the corridor allocation problem (CAP) to additional floors; the layout of each floor can be regarded as an approximately independent CAP. The DFCAP is commonly observed in manufacturing and service buildings. In this study, a mixed-integer programming formulation for the DFCAP is developed, and it is able to reduce to the classical CAP model. Then a novel flower pollination algorithm is provided, which is discretised using swap pair set approach to solve the considered DFCAP. In addition, to ameliorate the algorithm, three constructive heuristic rules are developed to produce a reasonably good initial population; meanwhile, a variable neighbourhood search structure is presented to prevent prematurity in arrival at a poor local solution. Finally, several instances for the DFCAP with a size of 9 <= n <= 80 are employed in the algorithms, as well as in mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) formulations, which are solved with GUROBI 7.0.1. Moreover, the above-mentioned instances are utilized to show that the proposed algorithm performs better in comparison to the state-of-the-art optimization algorithms.