A novel bi-level continuous formulation for the cellular manufacturing system facility layout problem

Cellular Manufacturing Systems (CMSs) play an important role in today's small- to mid-size production enterprises. The facility layout problem for such manufacturing system is a group-one that includes both intercellular and intracellular relationships. A novel continuous formulation has been developed for the problem to model manufacturing shops with vertical and horizontal aisles and to eliminate any possible overlap between machine tools as well that between cells. The overall approach adopted is a bi-level one; initially an upper-level leader facility layout problem is being solved for each cell at a time; then, a lower-level follower facility layout problem (FLP) is being solved after at the shop level determining the overall layout of the shop, where the position of the different cells are to be determined. A case study from the local machining industry has been utilized to verify the model.