Integrated RMS layout and flow path design: Modelling and a heuristic method

Abstract

This paper proposed a new model for the integrated layout and flow path design problem of reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) using AGV and developed a heuristic method for it. In the proposed model, the layout and the flow path were considered at the same time. And the objective was to minimize the total material handling cost. A heuristic method, named EMLG, was developed to solve the proposed model. Variable neighbourhood search was adopted in the local search procedure of EMLG. The forces of particles were calculated separately and the particles were moved separately. Several computation cases were carried out. The computation results show that the solution quality of the integrated model is much better than that of the step by step one and the proposed method is able to complete computation in limited time and gets high quality solutions. This indicates that the proposed method is effective. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.