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This add-in accepts as
data: a list of departments, the physical sizes of departments,
part flows between departments, material handling costs
between departments and the size of a proposed facility.
The program tries to find the layout of the departments
within the facility that minimizes the total cost of material
handling. Two different algorithms are provided, the traditional
CRAFT layout procedure and a procedure that finds the optimum
sequence of departments in sequential layout. Both are
heuristic procedures that do not necessarily find the optimum.
A graphical presentation of the layout, as shown above,
allows the designer to experiment with alternatives.
Two pages have been added to the
earlier versions of this description. The first describes
how to model a layout problem with a Quadratic Assignment
model. The second allies more powerful combinatorial
search techniques to the optimization of a sequential
layout.
This section describes the Facility
Layout add-in that implements the CRAFT and
sequential methods of solution. A companion section
in the Design section describes the Facility
Layout problem in more detail. The ORMM Computations
section uses the Combinatorial add-in to solve
the Quadratic
Assignmentmodel for equal department sizes. |
