ABSTRACT
Omar Al-Araidah, Ananth Krishnamurthy, and Charles J. Malmborg
CONTENTS
Abstract This chapter presents a new cost-based concurrent layout and materials-handling system design technique that takes into account flexibility in department shapes, manufacturer guidelines on equipment usage, and limitations on ergonomic deployment of material-handling operators. The methodology is aimed at providing management with the ‘‘optimal’’ layout, material-handling equipment portfolio, and the number and skill mix for material-handling operators. A cost-based, discrete-plane layout algorithm adapting material-handling system design in layout development is discussed. The cost function accounts for machine availability, machine capacity, investment and operational costs of equipment, manufacturer recommendations for usage of equipment, operator availability, and ergonomic usage of operators. The computational advantages of a cluster-based procedure that attempts to exploit the potential correlation between material-flow volume distance and material-handling cost are investigated. Because the cluster-based approach has certain limitations, a two-stage greedy simulated annealing (SA) algorithm adapting the characteristics of the best-available solutions in the estimation of the SA computational parameters is proposed. The algorithm is aimed at decreasing the computational times of classical single-stage SA algorithms while maintaining high-quality solutions. The algorithm benefits from the fast convergence of greedy algorithms and the high-quality results of SA procedures attained though exploring alternatives with inferior objective function values. The algorithm takes the properties of the noise range of the SA algorithms into consideration to obtain a proper melting temperature for the initial solution attained through the greedy heuristic thereby accelerating the SA stage. The algorithm is tested in layout environments where palletized products are transported between departments using variable path manual and powered industrial trucks.
