Abstract
This paper analyzes a facility layout problem in advanced manufacturing systems with alternative processing routes. In a traditional quantitative facility layout problem, minimizing the total value of "the distance value multiplied by the work flow value" between any two facilities, the work flow between facilities was assumed to be constant. However, there are several alternative processing routes for any job in recent machining systems, so that the work flow becomes changeable. This paper formulates a facility layout problem with alternative processing routes, using a closed queueing network model. The original layout problem is decomposed into the work flow decision problem and the layout position decision problem. An efficient method exploiting an approximate CQN model and a heuristic method using a simulated annealing are proposed to solve these subproblems, respectively. Some numerical experiments are shown to demonstrate that this method efficiently yields a near optimal layout with high accuracy.
