A comparative study for layout planning of temporary construction facilities: Optimization by using ant colony algorithms

Construction site layout is among the most challenging tasks of the construction planning process that consists of identifying temporary facilities to support construction activities, defining their shapes, sizes and allocating them into available spaces within the site boundaries. A good site layout can minimize the travel time between facilities, improve site safety, increase productivity, and, thus, decrease construction cost and time. Although site layout has such a major role in planning, it has received relatively little attention due to the complex nature of the problem, which is formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem. In this study, the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm is proposed for site layout problems. ACO mimics the behavior of real ants for finding solutions and is proved to introduce feasible solutions for combinatorial optimization problems. The effectiveness of proposed algorithm is illustrated by using a literature problem. It was observed that the developed ACO model performed a better layout alternative. © 2018 Esprit. All rights reserved.