%0 Journal Article %A Mustahsan Mir and Ahmed Hassanin and Mohammed A. Al-Saleh %D 2016 %J International Journal of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering %B World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology %I Open Science Index 111, 2016 %T Identification of Promising Infant Clusters to Obtain Improved Block Layout Designs %U https://publications.waset.org/pdf/10003805 %V 111 %X The layout optimization of building blocks of unequal areas has applications in many disciplines including VLSI floorplanning, macrocell placement, unequal-area facilities layout optimization, and plant or machine layout design. A number of heuristics and some analytical and hybrid techniques have been published to solve this problem. This paper presents an efficient high-quality building-block layout design technique especially suited for solving large-size problems. The higher efficiency and improved quality of optimized solutions are made possible by introducing the concept of Promising Infant Clusters in a constructive placement procedure. The results presented in the paper demonstrate the improved performance of the presented technique for benchmark problems in comparison with published heuristic, analytic, and hybrid techniques. %P 488 - 493