A study on optimal of block facility layout using Hybrid GA

Hybrid GA를 이용한 최적의 블록단위 설비배치에 관한 연구

Facility layout is the early stage of system design that requires a mid-term or long-term plan. Since improper facility layout might incur substantial logistics cost including material handling and re-installment costs, due consideration must be given to decisions on facility layout. Facility layout is concerned with low to arrange equipment necessary for production in a given space. Its objective is to minimize the sum of all the products of each equipment's amount of flow multiplied by distance. Facility layout also is related to the issue of NP-complete, i.e., calculated amounts exponentially increase with the increase of the number of equipment. This study discusses Hybrid GA developed, as an algorithm for facility layout, to solve the above-mentioned problems. The algorithm, which is designed to efficiently place equipment, automatically produces a horizontal passageway by the block, if a designer provides the width and length of the space to be handled. In addition, this study demonstrates the validity of the Algorithm by comparing with existing algorithms that have been developed. We present a Hybrid GA approach to the facility layout problem that improves on existing work in terms of solution quality and method. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is able to produce better solution quality and more practical layouts than the ones obtained by applying existing algorithms.