This add-in accepts as data: a list of departments, the physical sizes of departments, part flows between departments, material handling costs between departments and the size of a proposed facility. The program tries to find the layout of the departments within the facility that minimizes the total cost of material handling. Two different algorithms are provided, the traditional CRAFT layout procedure and a procedure that finds the optimum sequence of departments in sequential layout. Both are heuristic procedures that do not necessarily find the optimum. A graphical presentation of the layout, as shown above, allows the designer to experiment with alternatives.

Two pages have been added to the earlier versions of this description. The first describes how to model a layout problem with a Quadratic Assignment model. The second allies more powerful combinatorial search techniques to the optimization of a sequential layout.