| |
Issue No:4, Vol.3 |
April - 2010 |
ISSN: 0974-5645 |
| RESEARCH ARTICLES |
Viewers & PDF |
| 15. Design and selection of facility layout using simulation and design of experiments.R. Jayachitra and P. S. S. Prasad (2010) Indian J.Sci.Technol. Vol. 3, Issue 4, pp: 437-446. Domain site: http://www.indjst.org. |
 
|
- Abstract
In the global industrial competition, layout design and planning is becoming more and more critical due to shorter
product life cycles and highly dynamic demand conditions. In this context, traditional layouts such as product and
process/functional layouts are considered inferior. Cellular layouts have been proposed as an alternative to these
layouts but they need a complete reallocation of resources, which consumes time and money. Hence, it is necessary to
verify the performance measures before the design and selection of a certain type of layout. In this context, this paper
makes an attempt to study the suitability of a virtual cellular layout (VCL) along with an existing functional layout (FL) of
an industry and a classical cellular layout (CL), if considered for implementation. A Genetic algorithm (GA) based intracell
formation procedure is used in the cellular layout design. To identify the suitability of a particular layout in a given
environment, a typical manufacturing system is modeled using the WITNESS 2006 simulation software. Design of
experiments (DOE) is used to plan the simulation experiments. The performance of each of the three layouts is
analyzed statistically by means of operational parameters such as machine utilization, throughput, average distance
traveled by parts and average work-in-process. The results from the simulation experiments indicate that the
performance of virtual cellular manufacturing falls between that of functional and cellular manufacturing. Also, we find
that the performance of a virtual cellular layout is often relatively superior to that of a functional layout and marginally
inferior to a cellular layout.
- Keywords: Functional layout, cellular layout, virtual cellular layout, genetic algorithm, simulation.
|
| |
|
|
|
