Proper arrangement of facility layout is a key issue in management that influences efficiency and the profitability of the manufacturing systems. Parallel Row Ordering Problem (PROP) is a special case of facility layout problem and consists of looking for the best location of n facilities while similar facilities (facilities which has some characteristics in common) should be arranged in a row ...

When workflow congestion is prevalent, minimizing total expected material handling time is more appropriate than minimizing a distanced-based objective in manufacturing facility layout design. We present a model labeled Full Assignment Problem with Congestion (FAPC), which simultaneously optimizes the layout and flow routing. FAPC is a generalization of the Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP), a...

2 TABLE OF FIGURES 5 INTRODUCTION 6 Problem Statement ...................................................................................................... 6 Deliverables................................................................................................................. 6 Scope ...........................................................................................................

Plant layout design is related to the location of facilities (e.g. machines, departments) in a plant. They are known to greatly impact the system performance. Numerous research works related to facility layout have been published. A few literature reviews exist, but they are not recent or are restricted to certain specific aspects of these layout design. The literature analysis given here is re...

This paper presents a novel approach to the facility layout design problem based on multi-agent society where agents’ interactions form the facility layout design. Each agent corresponds to a facility with inherent characteristics, emotions, and a certain amount of money, forming its utility function. An agent’s money is adjusted during the learning period by a manager agent while each agent tr...