Facility layout design using fuzzy linguistic variables and Hilbert space filling curves

This research introduces a new heuristic approach for generating block layouts of facilities. The new heuristic uses space-filling curves to determine placement of departmental areas in the facility. Departments enter the layout according to fuzzy linguistic assessments of the relationship importance and the relative location of departments. The heuristic contains an improvement procedure that attempts to score the block layout based upon the difference between the described fuzzy linguistic relationships and the actual departmental locations in the layout, placed along the space-filling curve.