Article ID: | iaor20052097 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 32 |
Issue: | 3 |
Start Page Number: | 583 |
End Page Number: | 598 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2005 |
Journal: | Computers and Operations Research |
Authors: | Vrat Prem, Solimanpur M., Shankar Ravi |
Keywords: | heuristics |
Single row machine layout problem is one of the most commonly used layout patterns, especially in flexible manufacturing systems. In this paper, this problem is formulated as a non-linear 0–1 programming model in which the distance between the machines is sequence dependent. An ant algorithm has been developed to solve this problem. A technique is proposed to efficiently implement the proposed algorithm. The performance of the proposed heuristic is tested over a number of problems selected from the literature. Computational results indicate that the proposed approach is more effective compared to many existing algorithms in this area.