A New Formulation for Dynamic Facility Layout Problem with the Locations of Input and Output Points within Unequal-sized Departments

摘要

Dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP) is to arrange departments within a planar for multiple periods where the material flows between departments may change due to the varying of market demands, with the objective of minimizing the sum of total material handling cost and rearrangement cost. This paper proposes a new formulation of DFLP which is more realistic than those for traditional dynamic layout problems in two ways. First, departments in the new formulation have unequal sizes and can be placed anywhere within a two dimensional planar rather than at a set of predetermined locations. Second, the new formulation simultaneously determines the layout of departments and the locations of input/output (I/O) points while most researchers tackle these two issues sequentially and separately. An example problem is well solved by using the proposed formulation.