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Facility Layout Problems A Survey
Facility Layout Problems A Survey
Facility Layout Problems A Survey
www.elsevier.com/locate/arcontrol
LIMOS, UMR CNRS 6158, IFMA, Institut Francais de Mecanique Avancee, Campus des Cezeaux, BP 265, F-63175 Aubie`re Cedex, France
b
URAII, INSAT, Institut National des Sciences Appliquees et de Technologie, Centre Urbain Nord, BP 676, 1080 Tunis, Tunisia
Received 14 January 2007; accepted 4 April 2007
Available online 5 November 2007
Abstract
Layout problems are found in several types of manufacturing systems. Typically, layout problems are related to the location of facilities (e.g.,
machines, departments) in a plant. They are known to greatly impact the system performance. Most of these problems are NP hard. 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 problems. The literature analysis given here is recent and not restricted to specific considerations about layout design.
We suggest a general framework to analyze the literature and present existing works using such criteria as: the manufacturing system features,
static/dynamic considerations, continual/discrete representation, problem formulation, and resolution approach. Several research directions are
pointed out and discussed in our conclusion.
# 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Manufacturing facility; Facility layout; Material handling; Dynamic layout; Optimization methods
1. Introduction
The placement of the facilities in the plant area, often
referred to as facility layout problem, is known to have a
significant impact upon manufacturing costs, work in process,
lead times and productivity. A good placement of facilities
contributes to the overall efficiency of operations and can
reduce until 50% the total operating expenses (Tompkins et al.,
1996). Simulation studies are often used to measure the benefits
and performance of given layouts (Aleisa & Lin, 2005).
Unfortunately, layout problems are known to be complex and
are generally NP-Hard (Garey & Johnson, 1979). As a
consequence, a tremendous amount of research has been
carried out in this area during the last decades. A few surveys
have been published to review the different trends and research
directions in this area. However, these surveys are either not
recent (Hassan, 1994; Kusiak & Heragu, 1987; Levary &
Kalchik, 1985), or focus on a very specific aspect of layout
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for the layout of machine (Devise & Pierreval, 2000; Heragu &
Kusiak, 1988). Co, Wu, & Reisman (1989) also pointed out that
the facility layout impacts the selection of the handling device.
Given the difficulty of solving both problems jointly, they are
mainly solved sequentially (Hassan, 1994). Among the major
types of layout arrangement based on the type of material
handling, one can distinguish, as depicted in Fig. 3: single row
layout, multi-rows layout, loop layout and open-field layout
(Yang, Peters, & Tu, 2005).
The single row layout problem occurs when facilities have to
be placed along a line (Djellab & Gourgand, 2001; Ficko,
Brezocnick, & Balic, 2004; Kim, Kim, & Bobbie, 1996;
Kumar, Hadjinicola, & Lin, 1995). Several shapes may be
considered from this basic situation, such as straight line, semicircular or U-shape (Hassan, 1994). The loop layout problem
deals with the assignment of m facilities to candidate locations
1, . . ., m, in a closed ring network, around which parts are
transported in one direction (Chaieb, 2002; Cheng & Gen,
1998; Cheng, Gen, & Tosawa, 1996; Nearchou, 2006; Potts &
Whitehead, 2001). The loop layout incorporates a Load/Unload
(L/U) station, i.e., location from which a part enters and leaves
the loop. This station is unique and it is assumed to be located
between position m and 1. The multi-rows layout involves
several rows of facilities (Hassan, 1994). The movements of
parts occur between facilities from the same row and from
different rows (Chen, Wang, & Chen, 2001; Ficko et al., 2004;
Kim et al., 1996). The open field layout corresponds to
situations where facilities can be placed without the restrictions
or constraints that would be induced by such arrangements as
single row or loop layout (Yang et al., 2005).
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260
N X
N X
N X
N
X
f ik d jl X i j X kl
(1)
i1 j1 k1 l1
s.t.
N
X
X i j 1;
j 1; . . . ; N
(2)
X i j 1;
i 1; . . . ; N
(3)
i1
N
X
j1
(4)
(5)
O
where (xO
i ; yi ) designate the coordinates of the drop-off point of
facility i, and (xIj ; yIj ) the coordinates of the pick-up point of
facility j.
The determination of the best locations of the P/D stations is
a specific problem, addressed for example by Chittratanawat
and Noble (1999), Kim and Kim (1999), and Aiello, Enea, and
Galante (2002).
Obviously, area constraints on the plant site exist, which
require the total area available to be superior or equal to the sum
of all the facility areas. The area allocated to each machine on
the floor plan must also take into account the space of other
resources or buffers, which are needed to operate the machine
(Lacksonen, 1997). The clearance between facilities can be
included or not in the facility surface (Braglia, 1996; Heragu &
Kusiak, 1988, 1991).
Another very important constraint is that facilities must not
overlap. Welgama and Gibson (1993) set two conditions for the
non-overlapping of facilities: condition of X-projection nonoverlapping and condition of Y-projection non-overlapping:
x jt xib x jb xit 0
(6)
y jt yib y jb yit 0
(7)
where (xit, yit) and (xib, yib) are the top-left and the bottom right
corners of the facility i and (xjt, yjt) and (xjb, yjb) are the top-left
and the bottom right corners of the facility j. Mir and Imam
(2001) defined an overlap area Aij between two facilities to
formulate this constraint. The layout optimization problem is
expressed as follows:
Minimize objective function
Subject to Ai j 0
(8)
where
Ai j li j DX i j DY i j ;
Li L j
DX i j li j
jxi x j j;
2
Wi W j
DY i j li j
jyi y j j;
2
1 for DX i j 0 and DY i j 0
li j
1 otherwise
Li ; W i are the length and width of facility i, and (xi,yi) are
coordinates of facility i.
Other constraints can also be considered in the layout
formulation, such as a pre-defined orientation of certain
facilities (Dunker et al., 2005). Given such constraints, a typical
formulation of the optimization problem can be as follows:
Minimize C
N X
N
X
I
O
f i j jxIj xO
i j jy j yi j
(9)
i1 j1
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262
6. Resolution approaches
Several approaches exist to address the different types of
problems that are formulated in the literature. They aim either
at finding good solutions, which satisfies certain constraints
given by the decision maker or at searching for an global or
local optimum solutions given one or several performance
objectives. This has yield heuristic based methods or
optimization algorithms, as explained in the following of this
section.
Some attempts of using artificial intelligent approaches
have been made to address layout problems. Expert systems
were, for example, proposed in (Heragu & Kusiak, 1990).
Hamann and Vernadat (1992) also used this approach for
intra-cell problems. More recently, an expert system based
on artificial neural networks was implemented for facility
layout construction in a manufacturing system (Chung,
1999).
Several types of optimization approaches have been
proposed in the literature. In the following, we distinguish:
exact methods, such as branch and bound, and approximated
approaches, such as heuristics and metaheuristics.
6.1. Exact approaches
Among articles that dealt with exact methods, Kouvelis
and Kim (1992) developed a branch and bound algorithm
for the unidirectional loop layout problem. Meller et al.
(1999) also used this approach to solve the problem of
placing n rectangular facilities within a given rectangular
available area. They proposed general classes of valid
inequalities, based on an acyclic sub-graph structure, to
increase the range of solvable problems and use them in a
branch-and-bound algorithm. Kim and Kim (1999) addressed
the problem of finding P/D locations on fixed size facilities
for a given layout. The objective of the problem is to
minimize the total distance of material flows between the
P/D points. Authors suggested a branch and bound
algorithm to find an optimal location of the P/D points of
each facility. Rosenblatt (1986) used a dynamic programming method to solve a dynamic layout problem with
equal size facilities. However, only small problem instances
have been solved optimally (six facilities and five time
periods).
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systems and of networks of firms are the main focuses of Dr. Pierrevals
research. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles in these areas,
published in well-known international refereed journals. He participates in
national and international research collaborations and is on the editorial board
of scientific journals.
Sonia Hajri-Gabouj is an associate professor at the Institute of Applied
Sciences and Technology of Tunis, Tunisia. She received her BS degree in
electrical engineering from the National Engineering School of Monastir,
Tunisia, in 1994. She got her MS and PhD degrees in industrial computing
and automatic from the University of Sciences and Technologies of Lille,
France, in 1994 and 1997, respectively. She received a qualification to direct
research degree from the National Engineering School of Tunis in 2003. She is
co-responsible for the URAII research unit in automatic and industrial computing of the Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology of Tunis. Her research
interests include fuzzy modeling, design and control of manufacturing systems,
scheduling and optimization and metaheuristics.