A Facility Layout Selection Model using MACBETH Method

Facility layout selection is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem which primarily involves in evaluating multiple candidate layouts, designed according to a set of common criteria for choosing the best one. Designing multiple facility layouts is an easy task, thank to availability of different facility layout design software. However, the decision of selecting the best layout becomes complex due to the involvement of several conflicting evaluation criteria. Thus, the decision makers often face the problem of selecting the best one from the available facility layout alternatives. In this paper, the application of Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical Based Evaluation TecHnique (MACBETH) approach is demonstrated while solving two real time facility layout selection problems. Even though MACBETH approach is recognized as an efficient MCDM tool for qualitative performance measures, it is also capable to deal with quantitative performance measures, as demonstrated in this paper. For the first example, having qualitative and quantitative data, the results obtained from MACBETH method exactly corroborate with those derived by the past researchers. In the second example, MACBETH method is applied to find out the best facility layout for a newly fangled case.