Increasing the Efficiency of Robotic Manufacturing Systems by Layout Optimization

Abstract

To achieve high efficiency in a robotic manufacturing system, an optimized layout arrangement and material flow path design are important due to the large percentage of product cost that is related to material handling, equipment positioning, material flow path, and products variety and volume (flexibility). Facility layout problem (FLP) can be considered as a multi-criteria problem due to presence of the qualitative criteria such as flexibility and the quantitative criteria for instance total cost of handling material. In this paper, we combined a well-known facility layout algorithm (CRAFT) with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique and decision matrix method to facilitate a multi criteria evaluation. The proposed approach aims to incorporate qualitative criteria in addition to quantitative criteria for evaluating facility layout patterns. A case study on a robotic system for manufacturing plate type oil coolers reveals the effectiveness of the proposed approach.