Robust facility layout design for flexible manufacturing: a doe-based heuristic
提出一种稳健布局方法，通过改变产品路径而非重新布局来应对需求变化，将问题分解为两个子问题，分别用实验设计、混合遗传-禁忌搜索和分支切割算法求解，案例验证效果优于文献方法。
Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) should be able to respond to changing manufacturing requirements and environments. From the layout point of view, FMS need to be rearranged to fit the new requirements. However, rearranging the layout is often undesirable due to its unpredicted high costs and production disruption. This paper proposes a practical approach to mitigate the effects and repercussions of changing environments and avoid rearranging the layout. A robust layout approach is presented, where changes in product demand and mix are absorbed by altering product routes and not rearranging the layout. In this approach, the problem is decomposed into two sub-problems: sub-problem 1 (SP1) where a robust layout is constructed, and sub-problem 2 (SP2) to obtain the best routes of products. To solve SP1, design of experiments is used to find a critical period, which is the period most affected under demand changes. Then, the layout for the critical period is determined using a hybridized genetic-tabu search algorithm. Then SP2 is solved by a branch and cut algorithm to obtain the optimal routes of the products in each period. The performance of the proposed methodology is illustrated using a case study and is benchmarked against rival ones from the literature.