VIP-PLANOPT is a practical and efficient tool for industrial facility layout designers. It can solve large problems of up to 1000 departments with a speed no other optimization algorithm can match and with guaranteed lowest cost layouts.

Easy Data Entry

VIP-PLANOPT minimizes the modeling and data input time. Most of the input requires just a few clicks of the mouse.

Optimum Orientation

VIP-PLANOPT can determine the optimum orientation of departments that have user-specified fixed dimension.

Anchored Module

Departments tagged as Anchored by the user are kept precisely at the user-specified locations in the optimal layouts.

Module Padding

The user can specify padding of empty space around the modules. Optimized layouts will have modules seperated by the specified padding.

Composite Boundary

The user can specify a rectangular or composite boundary. If feasible, VIP-PLANOPT will produce optimized layout within the specified boundary.

Negative Flow

The user can specify negative flow between any pair of departments. This keeps the two departments as apart as possible in the optimized layout.

Minimum User Interaction

No initial design or user-specified tuning parameters are required. Produces optimized layouts without any user interaction.

Pick-up and Drop-off Points

The user can specify pick-up and drop-off points anywhere inside or outside the boundary of a department with a click of the mouse pointer.

Compare Alternative Layouts

Graphical display of the optimized layout allows the user to relocate any departments and compare the cost of alternative layouts.

Forbidden Area Module (FAM)

VIP-PLANOPT has introduced a novel concept of Forbidden Area Module to model obstructions and non-usable spaces of a facility.

Composite cost function

Composite cost function option allows the user to specify a weight on the area of the rectangle enclosing all the modules in the optimized layout.

Inter-department Distance

The user can specify upper bounds on distances between any pair of departments. This keeps the two departments within a given distance in the optimized layout.