A new soft computing algorithm based on cloud theory for dynamic facility layout problem

Abstract

This paper deals with dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP) in a plant which is concerned with determining the best position of machines in the plant during a multi-period planning horizon. The material handling costs and machines rearrangement costs (MRC) are used to determine the best layout. In addition to the positions of machines, the details of transportation such as type of transporters and sequence of transportation operations have a direct effect on material handling costs (MHC). Therefore, it is more realistic to consider the transportation details during DFLP optimization. This paper proposes a new mathematical model to simultaneously determine the best position of machines in each period and to plan the transportation operations. Minimizing sum of MHC and MRC is considered as the objective function. A new hybrid meta-heuristic approach has been developed by combining modified genetic algorithm and cloud-based simulated annealing algorithm to solve the model. Finally, the proposed methodology is compared with two meta-heuristics on a set of test problems.