Optimization Algorithms for Site Facility Layout Problems Using Self-Organizing Maps

Determining the layout of temporary facilities that support construction activities at a site is an important planning activity, as layout can significantly affect cost, quality of work, safety, and other aspects of the project. The construction site layout problem involves difficult combinatorial optimization. Recently, various artificial intelligence(AI)-based algorithms have been applied to solving many complex optimization problems, including neural networks(NN), genetic algorithms(GA), and swarm intelligence(SI) which relates to the collective behavior of social systems such as honey bees and birds. This study proposes a site facility layout optimization algorithm based on self-organizing maps(SOM). Computational experiments are carried out to justify the efficiency of the proposed method and compare it with particle swarm optimization(PSO). The results show that the proposed algorithm can be efficiently employed to solve the problem of site layout.