In this paper, we present a formulation of the plant layout problem where the objective is to minimize work-in-process. We show that the choice of layout has a direct impact on work-inprocess accumulation, manufacturing lead time, achievable throughput rates, and required material handling capacity. More importantly, we show that layouts generated using a queueing-based model can be very differ...

Genetic Algorithm which is based on the Darwinian principle of natural selection has been successfully applied to Berth allocation problem (BAP), which can decide the ships’ berthing position and berthing time at a container terminal. Considering the service priority, handing time deciding variables, safety clearance, as well as the berths’ physical conditions, a dynamic berth allocation with d...

In today’s economy, manufacturing plants must be able to operate efficiently and respond quickly to changes in product mix and demand. Therefore, this paper considers the problem of arranging and rearranging (when there are changes between the flows of materials between departments) manufacturing facilities such that sum of the material handling and rearrangement costs are minimized. This probl...

In this study, we have classified different types of problems which are related to facility planning and layout design for different types of manufacturing processes. The main problems which are related to location of facilities which also affects the system performance such as distribution of man, material and machine in a plant or a factory and their optimization technique while using of math...

The main characteristic of today’s manufacturing environments is volatility. Under such a volatile environment some parameters like demand is not stable. To operate efficiently under such environments, the facilities must be adaptive to change production requirements. From a layout point of view, this situation requires the solution of the dynamic layout problem (DLP). Layout design has a signi...

Today’s consumer market demands that manufacturers must be competitive. This requires the efficient operation of manufacturing plants and their ability to quickly respond to changes in product mix and demand. In addition, studies show that material handling cost make up between 20 and 50 percent of the total operating cost. Therefore, this paper considers the problem of arranging and rearrangin...

this article addresses a single row facility layout problem where the objective is to optimize the arrangement of some rectangular facilities with different dimensions on a line. regarding the np-hard nature of the considered problem, a hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm based on simulated annealing has been proposed to obtain a near optimal solution. a number of test problems are randomly generat...

This paper proposes a novel user interface to manage the dynamic layout of multimedia objects in the Multimedia Bulletin Board (MBB) system. The MBB has been designed and implemented as a prototype of an asynchronous communication system that enables rich communication and collaboration among users of multimedia objects such as text, image, moving picture, sound, voice, web, office document, an...

Facility layout design is a strategic issue and has a significant and lasting impact on the efficiency of a manufacturing system. An ideal facility layout provides the optimum relationship among output, floor area and manufacturing process. Traditionally, the facility layout problem is solved using many methods like heuristics, Mathematical programming, Knowledge based approaches etc. This pape...