Development of the MAIN algorithm for a cellular manufacturing machine layout

Abstract

When a static machine layout is simply optimized to a fixed quantitative demand, it may not be able to cope with demand fluctuations. The development of a heuristic approach called the MAIN (Machines Allocation INter-relationship) algorithm for intracellular machine layout design is introduced. It begins by analysing a single period with a fixed quantitative demand and machine assignment is based on a set of proposed objective functions together with merging techniques. To simulate the demand fluctuations in a multiple periods planning horizon, layouts are generated to fit different demand profiles. Each layout is then processed further. First, at every periodic transition, there is re-layout to minimize the material-handling cost. Second, we will examine the condition of using a layout right through all the periods to keep away from the machine rearrangement cost with some scarifications of the material-handling cost. Comparisons will be done to seek out good machine layout(s). In terms of a single-period layout, the experimental results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm can achieve an average deviation of 4.8% in contrast with optimal solutions. However, to opt for re-layout or not depends very much on the relations between the machine rearrangement and material-handling costs. Moreover, the variations in the qualitative aspects in material handling will also be considered as it has significant influence on the design of the machine layout.

Acknowledgements

The work was substantially supported by a grant from the Department of Industiral & Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project No. G-V524).