Dynamic construction site layout planning using max-min ant system

Construction site layout planning (CSLP) is a dynamic multi-objective optimization (MOO) problem as there are different facilities employed in the different construction phases of a construction project. In this study, a new method using continuous dynamic searching scheme to guide the max-min ant system (MMAS) algorithm, which is one of the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms, to solve the dynamic CSLP problem under the two congruent objective functions of minimizing safety concerns and reducing construction cost is proposed. Using weighted sum method the MOO problem can be solved by the proposed MMAS method. An office building case was used to verify the capability of the proposed method to solve dynamic CSLP problem and the results are promising. The approach could be benchmarked by researchers using other advanced optimization algorithms to solve the same problem or expand the applications to other fields. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.