One-dimensional machine location problems in a multi-product flowline with equidistant locations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-16-1998

Abstract

An assignment of machines to locations along a straight track is required to optimize material flow in many manufacturing systems. The assignment of M unique machines to M locations along a linear material handling track with the objective of minimizing the total machine-to-machine material transportation cost is formulated as a quadratic assignment problem (QAP). The distance matrix in problems involving equally-spaced machine locations in one dimension is seen to possess some unique characteristics called amoebic properties. Since an optimal solution to a problem with large M is computationally intractable (the QAP is NP-hard), a number of the amoebic properties are exploited to devise heuristics and a lower bound on the optimal solution. Computational results which demonstrate the performance of the heuristics and the lower bound are presented. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

European Journal of Operational Research

First Page

401

Last Page

426

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