International Bulletin of Business Administration ISSN: 1451-243X Issue 11 (2011) EuroJournals, Inc. 2011 http://www.eurojournals.

com

A Simulation-Based heuristic for the Dynamic Facility Layout Problem

P. Azimi Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Islamic Azad University (Qazvin Branch), Iran E-mail: p.azimi@yahoo.com. Tel: 0098 21 88552640; Fax: 0098 21 88705839 M. A. Salehi.a Department of Accounting and Management Allameh Tabatabai University, Iran E-mail: ma.salehi21@yhaoo.com. Abstract Although several exact approaches like dynamic programming are available for the Dynamic Facility Layout Problem (DFLP), they are not practical for large scale problems. In this paper, we have developed a new efficient heuristic algorithm for DFLP which is based on simulation technique. In the proposed algorithm, the DFLP problem has been transformed to a simulation model with all required constraints according to mathematical formulation of DFLP. In order to verify the efficiency of the proposed algorithm a wide range of experiments were carried out to compare the proposed algorithm with a recent research which is based on simulated annealing algorithm. The results show that the proposed algorithm is effective enough for applications in terms of speed and accuracy.

Keywords: Dynamic facility layout problem, Simulation technique, Quadratic assignment problem.

1. Introduction
In today manufacturing environments, facilities have to be flexible and adaptive to the regular changes in product features, demands and customer s tastes, while minimizing related costs such as material handling and facility rearrangement costs (Dong et al. 2009). In other words, when business environment is dynamic, i.e. a wide range of products with variable demands and short lifecycles, static facility layout is not responsive enough and may result in inefficiency of material handling and non-productivity in system performance (Benjaafar et al., 2002). Static facility layout problem (SFLP) supposes that the key data about the workplace and the material flow between facilities will be constant enough during a known planning horizon; an assumption that does not always come true. So, dynamic facility layout problem, which is more adaptable to the discussed dynamic changes, is recently introduced by some authors. DFLP ignores the optimistically and unreal assumption of the SFLP and take into account possible changes in the material handling flow over planning horizon (Balakrishnan and Cheng, 2009; Kouvelis et al., 1992). The DFLP, a problem which is known to have a great impact on manufacturing costs, WIP, and overall productivity (Drira et al., 2007), includes the design of facility layouts based on a multiple 112

period planning horizon. During this horizon, the material flow between facilities in the layout may change. This fact necessitates a more sophisticated approach than the well-researched Static Facility Layout Problem (SFLP) approach. Since the SFLP is a problem of finding locations of facilities on the plant floor so that facilities do not overlap and some objectives are considered (McKendall and Hakobyan, 2010), when material flows between departments change during the planning horizon, the problem becomes dynamic and the Dynamic Facility Layout Problem (DFLP) emerges. The most commonly used objective is minimizing material handling cost. The Dynamic Facility Layout Problem (DFLP) extends the SFLP by considering the feasible changes in material handling flow over multiple periods and the costs of rearranging the layout (McKendall and Hakobyan, 2010; McKendall et al., 2006; Balakrishnan et al., 2003; Kusiak and Heragu, 1987). When flows of materials between facilities change during multiple periods, the SFLP changes to Dynamic Facility Layout Problem. However, in a stable environment where material handling flow does not change over a long time and taking into account a static layout would be acceptable, in todays dynamic environment, material flow can change quickly and this fact necessitates a dynamic layout analysis. For example, 75% of Hewlett Packards products are less than 3 years old and this percentage is increasing (Hammer, 1996, p12). On the other hand, any changes in product mix can result in changes in flows between facilities and thus can influence on layouts (Balakrishnan et. al, 2003). Tompkins et al. (2003) reported material handling cost represents 2050% of the total operating cost and 1570% of the total cost of manufacturing a product (Tompkins et al., 2003), so considering a problem which can minimize this element of cost would be extraordinary important. On the other hand rearrangement costs are incurred when the facilities are rearranged in order to minimize material handling costs (McKendall, 2006). Some of the factors which may change material flow, including changes in the design of an existing product, the addition or deletion of products, replacement of existing facilities, shorter product life cycles, and changes in the production quantities and associated production schedules are mentioned by (Shore and Tompkins, 1980). The DFLP is based on the forecasted changes in material flow which may occur in the future. This future is divided into a number of time periods, may defined as weeks, months, years and/or etc. The flow data for each period are forecasted, and it is supposed that the flow data will remain constant during the single period, and changeable between different changes (McKendall et al, 2006). Note that, the solution for the SFLP is a single layout, and the solution for the DFLP is a layout plan (McKendall et al. 2006) including T single layouts. Therefore, the total cost of a layout plan consists of the sum of the material handling costs for all periods and the sum of the rearrangement costs (Dong, 2009; McKendall et. al., 2006). The rearrangement cost may include labor cost, equipment cost, and the cost of production loss (McKendall et al., 2006). Tompkins et al. (1996) reported that the importance of a good layout planning can be measured by the fact that over $250 billion is spent in the US alone on planning and re-planning layouts and that 2050% of the total operating expenses within manufacturing can be attributed to material handling. An efficient layout plan of facilities results in a well-coordinated workflow between the facilities, and helps other operations to perform well. Also coordinating the material flow between the facilities, safety of the workplace, avoiding of the overutilization of the material handling systems and avoiding of the accumulation of work-in-process are some benefits of a good layout plan addressed in literature. Thus, an efficient layout contributes to the overall efficiency of operations (McKendall, et al. 2006). Rosenblatt (1986) was the first researcher who proposed a solution technique based on dynamic programming (DP) for the DFLP. Since the DFLP with N facilities and T periods includes individual layouts, it is computationally intractable for finding the real best solution for it (McKendall and Hakobyan, 2010). Therefore a good number of authors use heuristics and meta-heuristics to find near optimum solutions for this kind of NP-Hard problem (Balakrishnan and Cheng, 1998). Heuristic procedures such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) for the DFLP can be found in a good number of papers including (Balakrishnan. and Cheng, 2000; Kochhar and Heragu, 1999). Balakrishnan et al. (2003) presented a hybrid genetic algorithm for the DFLP. Baykasoglu and Gindy (2001) have developed a Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm for the DFLP. Some another papers applying SA are (McKendall 113

et al. 2006) where they used an upper and a lower bound of the solution of a given problem instance to determine SA parameters, and (Wu et al. 2008). Also McKendall et al. (2006) presented two SA heuristics. The first SA heuristic (SA I) is a direct adaptation of SA to the DFLP. The second one (SA II) is the same as SA I, except that it has an added look-ahead/look-back strategy. Urban (1998) developed a steepest-descent heuristic based on pair-wise-exchange idea, similar to CRAFT. Lacksonen and Enscore (1993) compared five heuristics, based on DP, Branch and Bound (B&B), cutting plane algorithm, cut trees, and CRAFT. Balakrishnan and Cheng (2009) investigate the performance of algorithms under fixed and rolling horizons, under different shifting costs and flow variability, and under forecast uncertainty for the DFLP. McKendall and Hakobyan (2010) have presented a paper considering unequal-size departments. For an extensive review on DFLP, its assumptions and solution techniques see Balakrishnan and Cheng (1998) and Kulturel-Konak (2007). For a review on SFLP, one may refer to Kusiak and Heragu (1987) and also Meller and Gau (1996). In this paper, the formulation of the DFLP is presented in section 2 then the proposed algorithm is presented in section 3. Also short explanation about developing the simulation model is presented in this section. The computational results which have obtained from 48 test problems are explained in section 4. Finally the conclusions of the study are summarized in sections 5.

2. The DFLP Formulation

The DFLP is the problem of finding locations of facilities on the plant floor over a planning horizon, while minimizing the sum of the material handling costs and rearrangement costs over this planning horizon (McKendall and Hakobyan, 2010). The formulations found in the literature for the DFLP depend on the method that the DFLP is formulated such as discrete or continuous. Therefore, the formulations are similar to Quadratic Assignment Problems (QAP) or Mixed Integer Programming (MIP). However, QAP is the most commonly encountered one (Drira et al. 2007). The QAP formulation for the DFLP is shown as follows: Problem 1: T N N N N T N N N M in.Z = At 1,tijl Yt 1,tijl + f tik d tjl xtij xtkl (1) t =1 i =1 j =1 k =1 l =1 t = 2 i =1 j =1 l =1

X
j =1

tij

= 1,
= 1,

i = 1,2,..., N, t = 1,2,...,T
j = 1,2,..., N, t = 1,2,...,T

(2)
(3)
(4) (5)

X
i =1

tij

Y( t 1) ,tijl = X (t 1) ij X til , i, j,l = 1,2 ,..., N, t = 2 ,...,T X tij {0,1}, i, j = 1,2 ,...N, t = 1,2,...,T

Where parameter is the number of periods in the planning horizon; parameter is the number of facilities and locations in the layout, is the flow between facility i and facility ; is the distance from location to ; is the cost of shifting facility from location to location between periods and (i.e. ); is a variable for shifting facility from is the variable for locating location to location between periods and ; and finally

facility at location in period . Objective function (1) is the sum of the material flow and layout rearrangement costs over the planning horizon. Equation (2) ensures that each location contains only one facility at each period; Equation (3) guarantees that each facility is placed only in one location at each period. Equation (4) states that the 01 departmental rearrangement variable takes on a value of 1 only if the facility shifts its location at the end of a period. This 0-1 programming problem has been shown to be a NP-Hard model (Wu, 2008) qua finding the optimal solution for the DFLP is not a

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simple work, since a DFLP with facilities and periods needs to evaluate layout plan. For example a DFLP with only 5 periods and 6 facilities has more than alternative layout plan. So in this paper we develop a very efficient algorithm for solving a DFLP, which is very fast in running.

3. The Proposed Algorithm

In this section, we are going to explain our heuristic algorithm, which is simple to be used in applications. First of all, we developed a simulation model according to Problem 1 constraints and its objective function. Figure 1, shows a very simple DFLP with which was developed by Enterprise Dynamics (ED) 8.1 software while Figure 2 is showing more details by depicting the channels between entities.
Figure 1: A view of a simple DFLP with N=T=3

In the simulation model, the facilities the first column in Figure 1, have been shown by the Product atom, which are indicated by red, blue and green colors. The Source atoms produce the product atoms based on pre-defined number in the second column. The number of products to be produced is the number of replications that we need. Because, we have three periods, columns 4,5 and 6 are designed to simulate the periods. In each period, we have three locations. All products will be assigned randomly (the probability of assigning a facility to a location is 1/3) to the locations which are indicated by Server atoms in brown. We have coded the simulation software in a way that all facilities are assigned to the locations simultaneously in each period and in each period, just one facility is assigned to each location and vice versa i.e., constraints (2) and (3) in Problem 1 have been considered. All parameters of Problems 1 have been stored in a Table atom. When a facility is assigned to a location, the objective function is updated based on the data taken from this table. After all facilities reach to the last column (the Sink atom), a single feasible solution of Problem 1 has been obtained. For tracing the assignments, we have used another Table atom. Whenever, a facility assigns to a location, the number of the facility and the assigned location are saved in this table. Because, the simulation model does not depend on the simulation clock, each replication is executed very fast. For example, 1000 replications take almost 6 seconds on the basic computer. After running enough replications, we will have several feasible solutions. Finally, a layout plan which has the least objective function will be chosen as the best solution. While the proposed heuristic is simple 115

and easy to be developed, its capability to find appropriate solution is proved by computational results shown in Tables 1-6.
Figure 2: A more detailed view of a simple DFLP with N=T=3

4. Computational Results
We have used Enterprise Dynamics simulation software 8.1 as the simulation software and all constraints were coded by 4Dscript language. All computations were run on a PC with 6.5 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM. Different DFLPs with N=6, 15 and 30; T=5 and 10 were tested. In this section, the computational results of applying our algorithm on 48 test problems taken from the literature (McKendall et al 2006) are presented. Note that, McKendall et al. (2006) proposed two Simulated Annealing heuristics (SAI and SAII), because the results of the last one were better, we picked up the results of SA II. They compared their results with several heuristics developed by Baykasoglu and Gindy (2001), Balakrishnan et al. (2003), Erel et al. (2005) and McKendall and Shang (2006), and showed that their proposed heuristic was the best among the other researches. Tables 1-6 summarize the computational results obtained by our heuristic for 48 test together with the SAII heuristic. In these tables the 1st and 2nd columns show the number of facilities and periods of the problem, respectively; the 3rd column is the problem number, the 4th shows the number of replications run for each DFLP. In the 5th and 6th columns, the average and optimal solutions under the proposed algorithm have been shown, respectively. The 7th and 8th columns show the average and the optimal solutions reported by McKendall et al., (2006). In the 9th column, the deviation percentage of the best solution obtained from the proposed algorithm from the best solution by McKendall et al., (2006) is given. In the last two columns, the average running time in minute is given for proposed algorithms. Note that the CPU time depends on the number of runs, and the dimensions of the problem ( and ). The greater value of N and/or T will result in greater CPU time. But because our simulation model does not depend on the time, so when a problem dimension becomes greater it will not have a great impact on the simulation running time.

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Table 1:
Problem Size N T

Computational results with N=6 and T=5

Problem Number P01 P02 P03 P04 P05 P06 P07 P08 NR 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 Average Solution 111,973.67 108,391.17 107,003.89 110,073.32 109,689.23 108,867.90 110,960.45 106,093.71 109,131.67 Best Solution 106,419.00 104,834.00 104,320.00 106,399.00 105,628.00 103,985.00 106,439.00 103,771.00 109,131.00 Average Solution [18] 106,419.00 104,834.00 104,320.00 106,399.00 105,628.00 103,985.00 106,439.00 103,771.00 105,377.00 Best Solution [18] 106,419.00 104,834.00 104,320.00 106,399.00 105,628.00 103,985.00 106,439.00 103,771.00 105,224.00 % Dev. 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Average Time 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 Average Time [18] 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17

average

Table 2:
Problem Size N T

Computational results with N=6 and T=10

Problem Number P09 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 NR 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 Average Solution 226,155.58 222,405.32 217,570.12 221,017.32 216,035.83 215,973.30 217,172.95 216,992.83 219,165.41 Best Solution 214,313.00 212,134.00 207,987.00 212,741.00 210,906.00 209,932.00 214,252.00 212,588.00 219,165.00 Average Solution [18] 214,313.00 212,136.00 208,070.00 212,741.00 210,974.00 209,944.00 214,252.00 212,588.00 211,856.00 Best Solution [18] 214,313.00 212,134.00 207,987.00 212,741.00 210,906.00 209,932.00 214,252.00 212,588.00 211,877.00 % Dev. 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Average Time 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.00 Average Time [18] 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33

10

average

Table 3:
Problem Size N T

Computational results with N=15 and T=5

Problem Number P17 P18 P19 P20 P21 P22 P23 P24 NR 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 Average Solution 494,173.99 493,778.91 494,638.69 486,298.52 505,027.64 499,608.69 499,249.25 494,836.24 495,951.49 Best Solution 480,569.00 479,597.47 486,183.22 483,977.47 488,844.41 486,489.25 486,769.00 490,593.65 485,930.88 Average Solution [18] 481,621.00 485,388.00 490,053.00 484,995.00 488,579.00 487,814.00 487,311.00 491,620.00 487,172.00 Best Solution [18] 480,496.00 484,761.00 488,748.00 484,414.00 487,911.00 487,147.00 486,779.00 490,812.00 486,383.00 % Dev. 0.02 -1.07 -0.52 -0.09 0.19 -0.14 0.00 -0.04 -0.21 Average Time 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 Average Time [18] 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5

15

average

Table 4:
Problem Size N T

Computational results with N=15 and T=10

Problem Number P25 P26 P27 P28 P29 P30 P31 P32 NR 5000 5000 5000 5000 5000 5000 5000 5000 5000 Average Solution 1,459,567.42 1,275,344.28 1,359,277.39 1,042,699.28 1,067,189.57 1,106,455.41 998,308.47 1,002,557.20 1,163,924.88 Best Solution 979,468.00 977,118.00 982,396.00 971,664.00 976,284.00 967,903.00 978,769.00 983,672.00 977,159.25 Average Solution [18] 981,528.00 978,630.00 984,235.00 975,802.00 978,904.00 970,553.00 981,196.00 985,459.00 979,538.00 Best Solution [18] 979,468.00 978,065.00 982,396.00 972,797.00 978,067.00 967,617.00 979,114.00 983,672.00 977,649.00 % Dev. 0.00 -0.09 0.00 -0.12 -0.18 0.03 -0.04 0.00 -0.05 Average Time 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 Average Time [18] 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96

15

10

average

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Table 5:
Problem Size N T

Computational results with N=30 and T=5

Problem Number P33 P34 P35 P36 P37 P38 P39 P40 Average Solution 593,701.14 532,295.67 544,083.49 579.354.11 562,719.25 586,518.97 581,167.71 597,686.35 572,190.78 Best Solution 574,290.00 554,683.00 572,868.00 567,279.00 556,356.00 566,597.00 568,204.00 573,202.00 566,934.00 Average Solution [18] 577,585.00 569,613.00 576,074.00 567,297.00 560,148.00 567,215.00 569,469.00 575,270.00 570,333.00 Best Solution [18] 576,741.00 568,095.00 574,036.00 566,248.00 558,460.00 566,597.00 568,204.00 573,755.00 569,017.00 % Dev. -0.42 -2.40 -2.00 0.18 -0.38 0.00 0.00 -0.10 -0.64 Average Time 3.50 3.50 3.50 3.50 3.50 3.50 3.50 3.50 3.50 Average Time [18] 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.4

NR 7000 7000 7000 7000 7000 7000 7000 7000 7000

30

average

Table 6:

Computational results with N=30 and T=10

Average Solution 1,283,668.24 1,250,369.17 1,198,501.53 1,198,558.34 1,118,833.28 1,106,448.30 1,065,511.57 1,244,179.13 1,183,258.69 Best Solution 1,122,288.00 1,156,051.00 1,123,422.00 1,143,721.00 1,113,593.00 1,140,643.00 1,149,677.00 1,161,437.00 1,138,854.00 Average Best Solution Solution [18] [18] 1,164,101.00 1,164,108.00 1,158,855.00 1,148,331.00 1,130,036.00 1,145,777.00 1,140,744.00 1,166,384.00 1,152,292.00 1,163,222.00 1,161,521.00 1,156,918.00 1,145,918.00 1,127,136.00 1,145,146.00 1,140,744.00 1,161,437.00 1,150,255.25 % Dev. -3.5 -0.47 -2.9 -0.19 -1.2 -0.39 0.78 0 -0.99 Average Time 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.50 Average Time [18] 7.8 7.8 7.8 7.8 7.8 7.8 7.8 7.8 7.8

Problem Problem Size Number N T P41 P42 P43 P44 30 10 P45 P46 P47 P48 average

NR 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000

As the results show, in all cases our computational times are better than McKendall et al., (2006) except in Table 2 where both ones have the same computational time. It must be noticed that we have chosen a large number of replications. In Table 1, both heuristics have obtained same solutions but our computational time is lower by almost 4 seconds. Table 2 shows that our best solution is as the same as McKendalls, so the average of %Dev. is zero. According to our selected replications the computational times are also the same. Table 4 shows that our best solution is better by -0.21% as deviation, i.e. in five out of eight problems, our results are better, and only in 2 problems our results are worse. Moreover, our algorithm is faster by 66 sec. in average in this case. Table 4 shows in three cases, the both algorithms have the same best solutions (and then %Dev. equals zero), in four cases %Dev. is negative (i.e. our best solution is better), and there is only one case that our solution is 0.03 percent worse than McKendall et al., (2006). Moreover Table 4 shows that our results are better -0.05% on average, and our average time is 39 seconds faster. As Table 5 Shows, we had run this problem (the DFLP with N=30, T=5) 7000 times. This large number of replications results in -0.64 percent deviation in best solutions, as well as less running time (by 54 sec.). Note that in all cases our average solutions have positive deviations and are greater than what reported by McKendall et al., (2006), and this is because of that we had used a simulation model which each layout generated by the simulation model is independent of other. Finally, as Table 6 shows our results in this case are better than what reported by McKendall et al., (2006) by -0.99% on average, and also our running time is better than McKendall et al., (2006) by 18 sec.. Note that the speed of our algorithm depends on mathematical programming model used to calculate costs, and it is seemed the simulation model has not any impact on running time. To sum up, our heuristic is better in finding solutions than McKendall et al., (2006) in most cases, and in running time in all cases. Note that one should be cautious at comparing running times 118

when McKendall et al., (2006) had used a Pentium IV 2.4 GHz PC, since we have used a 2.66 GHz CPU and 3GB RAM Laptop. So it is not easy to compare justly running times when heuristics use different operating systems, system spec. and techniques.

5. Conclusions
In this paper, the application of a simulation-based heuristic for solving the DFLP was investigated. The main contribution of the current research is showing the efficiency of simulation technique for even large scale problems like DFLP. The simulation model designed and coded according to the formulation presented for DFLP. Because, the simulation model does not depend on the simulation clock, the speed of the algorithm is amazing. For example for a middle scale problem, it takes almost 6 seconds for 1000 replications and maximum 45 seconds for 1000 replications in the largest scale problem. In order to test the performance of our heuristic it was compared with the best heuristic which was presented by McKendall et al., (2006) over 48 test problems. As the results show, our heuristic has better quality with remarkable lower CPU time in all cases. For future research we strongly propose to hybridization of our approach with other meta-heuristics like Genetic Algorithm, and/or Particle Swarm Optimization and/or Ant Colony Optimization.

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