A Study on Facilities Location with Tie Set

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of facilities location, sometimes called plant layout. Some facilities location algorithms are developed based upon such graphic theory as spanning tree, planar graph and dual graph. In this paper, nodes are defined as facilities and arrows are defined as materials flow, the information of intraplant movement of materials being described by use of oriented graph. An algorithm, which finds out "the minimum backward materials flow location" is developed to rationalize the intraplant facilities location, on the assumption that the facilities locate in a straight line. The feature of this algorithm is in the ability to select the optimal solution, only by using easy matrices manipulation. For verification of it, a trial of this algorithm in regard to 6 actual facilities data is made.