Planning of modular construction manufacturing plant layouts using non-linear optimization

Abstract

The layout of a manufacturing facility has a significant impact on its productivity and effectiveness, as evidenced by the large amount of research surrounding the facility layout problem and optimization of the solution. In the continually evolving modular construction industry, the solution to this problem will change as often as any smaller adjustment is made to the production line. Because of this continual evolution, it is not possible to continuously change the layout, as this would quickly become prohibitive because of the cost and the need to stop production. This paper presents an optimization of the number of stations per department using the generalized reduced gradient (GRG) optimization algorithm to balance the production line. The benefit of using this algorithm is that it presents the near optimal number of stations in each department and allows for quick modifications to achieve the feasible number of stations in the ever-changing environment.