Layout Optimization in a Fitness Industry: An Application of QAP Formulation and Heuristic Approaches

The Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) is the problem of determining a one-to-one and onto assignment between two sets, each consisting of n objects (e.g., n facilities and n locations) so as to minimize the sum of the distance × flow associated with pairs of assignments. In this study, QAP formulation is applied to a fitness center to assign the sports equipment to the related locations on the layout. Facilities are considered as sports equipment and locations are considered the required area for equipment on the layout. A case study with 19 sports equipment is considered. The objective of the study is to allocate the equipment to the 19 available locations to minimize the total walking distance while considering the interactions between sports equipment. An Integer Programming (IP) formulation is applied using GUROBI package program. 2-opt and tabu search algorithms are also applied to find the feasible/optimal solutions in a reasonable time. The results show that the heuristic approaches are more effective than IP in terms of computational time. The optimal result which is obtained by IP, 2-opt and tabu search provides a better layout with 55.47% less distance × flow compared to the current layout.