Abstract

Facility layout design generally refers to the location of different types of facilities and determination of the configuration of certain type of facilities. The purpose of the present work to minimize the cost incurred amongst the departments of a certain layout by considering the vertical flow pattern. There are varieties of choices available to implement the optimal layout so that the cost may be minimized. But in the present work, genetic algorithm has been utilized to get the optimal result at minimum time. ALDEP, CORELAP and CRAFT are quite popular computerized techniques for finding out the optimal layout design, but it has been found out that the genetic algorithm has wide number of alternatives through which different types of layout can be designed at minimum time without any hazards. Since there are many types of standard layout available to determine the cost, but Y-Oscillatory type layout has been considered in the present work as a case study to show the probable changes of transportation cost. The method, which has been given in the present work, has a wide range of application. This idea can be applied in any type of layout in manufacturing organization or any corporate sector or any pharmaceutical company and so on. This work has been performed on the basis of facility layout design. Since this type of work already been implemented through the standard methodologies like, ALDEP, CORELAP or CRAFT techniques, so the author tries to apply it on the manufacturing plant with the help of genetic algorithm tool and found satisfactory result.

Key words: Facility layout, genetic algorithm, mutation, crossover, fitness function.