Facility Layout Optimization with Stochastic Logistic Flows

With the changing technology, market requirements vary quickly. Manufacturing facilities must be able to exhibit high levels of flexibility and robustness despite significant changes in their operating requirements. This paper discusses the facility layout problem with stochastic product demand and logistic flows. The shape of the department is fixed, but the rotation is allowed. Criteria considered in this paper include not only the traditional material handling cost but also the shape ratio factor and the operational performance such as WIP value. Material handling cost is formulated by the mean value and the standard deviation. A hybrid algorithm based on Tabu search and simulated annealing is constructed to solve this problem. Experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm