For the facility layout problem, many research articles have appeared concerning the relative effectiveness of human and computer algorithm.
In this thesis it is shown that the variability of the department size is an important characteristic in distinguishing problems for which humans or computers are more effective.
The results of an experiment show the followings : 1) computer algorithms do better if the human subjects have no prior knowledge of the outcomes of the computer solutions : 2) the problem size, the flow dominance and the variability of the facility size are important characteristics in determiniing the class of important problem for which human (or computer) is superior in the performance : 3) the computer does better as the problem size increases : 4) human can solve the problems with the high or near-zero flow dominance, though the computer does still at least as well across all levels of flow dominance and the similar results are observed regarding to the variability of the department size.
