TY - JOUR
T1 - A Three-Stage Approach to a Multirow Parallel Machine Layout Problem
AU - Zuo, Xingquan
AU - Gao, Shubing
AU - Zhou, Meng Chu
AU - Yang, Xin
AU - Zhao, Xinchao
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received February 11, 2018; revised June 6, 2018; accepted July 16, 2018. Date of publication October 11, 2018; date of current version January 4, 2019. This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Editor H. Darabi and Editor J. Li upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 61873040, 61374204, 61375066, and 61532006. (Corresponding author: MengChu Zhou.) X. Zuo is with the School of Computer Science, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China, and also with the Key Laboratory of Trustworthy Distributed Computing and Service, Ministry of Education, Beijing 100876, China (e-mail: zuoxq@bupt.edu.cn).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2004-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - Facility layout is vital to save operational cost and enhance production efficiency. Multirow layout is a common pattern in practical manufacturing environment. Although parallel machines are frequently implemented in practice to enhance productivity, there lacks any in-depth study on multirow layout problem with parallel machines. In this paper, its mathematical programming formulation is established to minimize material flow cost. A three-stage approach is proposed to solve it. First, a Monte Carlo heuristic is devised to optimize the sequence of machines on multiple rows. Second, a linear program is used to determine the optimal exact location of each machine. Finally, an exchange heuristic is adopted to reassign material flows among parallel machines in different machine groups. An iterative optimization strategy is suggested to execute the three stages repeatedly to improve the solution quality. This approach is applied to a number of problem instances and compared against others. The experimental results show that it is able to effectively solve this new problem and significantly decrease material flow cost. Note to Practitioners-Multirow layout is common in practical manufacturing systems in which parallel machines are often used to improve productivity, shorten production time, and guarantee some flexibility. This paper studies a multirow parallel machine layout problem that involves machine groups, each of which contains parallel machines. Solving it is to locate all machines at multiple parallel rows to minimize material flow cost. It is challenging because one needs to decompose material flows and determine exact locations of machines simultaneously. A three-stage approach is proposed to do so. It is applied to many problem instances. The results demonstrate that it works well for such layout problems with parallel machines.
AB - Facility layout is vital to save operational cost and enhance production efficiency. Multirow layout is a common pattern in practical manufacturing environment. Although parallel machines are frequently implemented in practice to enhance productivity, there lacks any in-depth study on multirow layout problem with parallel machines. In this paper, its mathematical programming formulation is established to minimize material flow cost. A three-stage approach is proposed to solve it. First, a Monte Carlo heuristic is devised to optimize the sequence of machines on multiple rows. Second, a linear program is used to determine the optimal exact location of each machine. Finally, an exchange heuristic is adopted to reassign material flows among parallel machines in different machine groups. An iterative optimization strategy is suggested to execute the three stages repeatedly to improve the solution quality. This approach is applied to a number of problem instances and compared against others. The experimental results show that it is able to effectively solve this new problem and significantly decrease material flow cost. Note to Practitioners-Multirow layout is common in practical manufacturing systems in which parallel machines are often used to improve productivity, shorten production time, and guarantee some flexibility. This paper studies a multirow parallel machine layout problem that involves machine groups, each of which contains parallel machines. Solving it is to locate all machines at multiple parallel rows to minimize material flow cost. It is challenging because one needs to decompose material flows and determine exact locations of machines simultaneously. A three-stage approach is proposed to do so. It is applied to many problem instances. The results demonstrate that it works well for such layout problems with parallel machines.
KW - Facility layout problem (FLP)
KW - linear program (LP)
KW - metaheuristic algorithm
KW - parallel machine
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U2 - 10.1109/TASE.2018.2866377
DO - 10.1109/TASE.2018.2866377
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85054622083
SN - 1545-5955
VL - 16
SP - 433
EP - 447
JO - IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
JF - IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
IS - 1
M1 - 8489959
ER -