Abstract
Facility layout problems (FLPs) are concerned with the non-overlapping arrangement of facilities. The objective of many FLP-based studies is to minimize the total material handling cost between facilities, which are considered as rectangular blocks of given space. However, it is important to integrate a layout design associated with continual material flow when the system uses circulating material handling equipment. The present study proposes approaches to solve the layout design and shortest single loop material handling path. Monarch butterfly optimization (MBO), a recently-announced meta-heuristic algorithm, is applied to determine the layout configuration. A loop construction method is proposed to construct a single loop material handling path for the given layout in every MBO iteration. A slicing tree structure (STS) is used to represent the layout configuration in solution form. A total of 11 instances are tested to evaluate the algorithm’s performance. The proposed approach generates solutions as intended within a reasonable amount of time.
Highlights
A facility layout design has significant value to the manufacturing world
The program was coded in JAVA, and the experiment was conducted on a computer with an Intel Core i5 CPU processor (3.5 GHz) and 8 GB of memory
Many studies using monarch butterfly optimization (MBO) [10,11,12,14,35] have adopted this same parameter setting because the original setting was based on the bio-inspired migration rate of the monarch butterfly
Summary
From the machine lines to the path of material handling equipment, many factors related to operation efficiency depend on the facility layout design [1]. Because a layout configuration is directly related to the material handling performance in a factory or workspace, researchers have been studying optimal facility layouts with various approaches. In academia, this came to be called the facility layout problem (FLP). In an FLP, departments that are known in size have to be arranged in a given space without overlapping [3]. For cases where each department has a different size, the term unequal area facility layout problem (UAFLP) has been coined. The Euclidean distance, which is the shortest diagonal distance, can be seen in Figure 1d [19]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
