Development of the MAIN algorithm for a cellular manufacturing machine layout

When a static machine layout is simply optimized to a fixed quantitative demand, it may not be able to cope with demand fluctuations. The development of a heuristic approach called the MAIN (Machines Allocation INter-relationship) algorithm for intracellular machine layout design is introduced. It begins by analysing a single period with a fixed quantitative demand and machine assignment is based on a set of proposed objective functions together with merging techniques. To simulate the demand fluctuations in a multiple periods planning horizon, layouts are generated to fit different demand profiles. Each layout is then processed further. First, at every periodic transition, there is re-layout to minimize the material-handling cost. Second, we will examine the condition of using a layout right through all the periods to keep away from the machine rearrangement cost with some scarifications of the material-handling cost. Comparisons will be done to seek out good machine layout(s). In terms of a single-period layout, the experimental results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm can achieve an average deviation of 4.8% in contrast with optimal solutions. However, to opt for re-layout or not depends very much on the relations between the machine rearrangement and material-handling costs. Moreover, the variations in the qualitative aspects in material handling will also be considered as it has significant influence on the design of the machine layout.