The distances used in certain types of industrial, office or street grid layouts are often assumed to be rectangular. Because of the "doubling back" effect caused by finite block and facility sizes, actual distances travelled are often much greater than indicated by the l₁ norm. In this study...

Two geometric approaches to solving sequencing problems are described and tested. Both methods have yielded optimal or near optimal solutions in problems where the optimal is known. Further, these methods have the advantage of being programmable, with execution in relatively short computation...