The plant design process is a set of complex and iterative decisional activities and analysis which involve heterogeneous “actors” with different competencies. The first design results are achieved after time-consuming analysis of thermodynamic and acoustic plant characteristics. Then, the functional solution (the plant layout and the ducts geometry) has to be verified from the structural viewp...

The increasing penetration of renewable sources with power-electronic interfaces in power systems is raising technical problems and the overall efficiency of photovoltaic systems can decrease dramatically. In this context, the optimal layout for the photovoltaic system is required. The most adequate strategy to connect the renewable system to the electrical power grid or to supply the end users...

In this paper we analyze and evaluate the effects of some pre-defined process parameters on the performance of a manufacturing system. These parameters include two different plant layout types, namely functional layout (FL) and cellular manufacturing layout (CL), as well as scheduling rule, machine downtimes, batch sizes, and transporter (interstage transporters) capacities. First we employ sim...