Research On Layout Optimization Of An Investment Casting Workshop

In today’s society,with the emergence of the Internet and big data,customer demands are shifting towards customization and personalization,which presents both opportunities and challenges for casting enterprises.In the fierce competition of the global market,how to reduce costs while responding quickly and improving production efficiency is still the direction of many enterprises’ survival and development.Optimizing the logistics system within the workshop is an important means of facility layout planning.First,this study takes the casting workshop as the research object and systematically analyzes the current situation of the workshop from the perspectives of layout and logistics,describing the problems existing in the casting workshop.The personnel,material,and equipment requirements of each unit in the workshop are predicted,and the area of each functional area is determined.Second,the traditional SLP(System Layout Planning)method is applied to comprehensively analyze the logistics and non-logistics relationships between the work units in the casting workshop,draw position-related diagrams,and then make reasonable adjustments based on the calculated work unit areas to obtain a set of initial layout optimization schemes for the casting workshop.Third,in order to avoid the limitations of the traditional system layout design method influenced by the subjective experience of the manager,a GA(Genetic Algorithm)is used to further optimize the workshop layout.Based on the actual situation of the workshop,a bi-objective mathematical model is established to minimize logistics costs and maximize non-logistics relationships as objectives.The solution is obtained through MATLAB software,and the second set of layout optimization schemes for the casting workshop is obtained.Finally,with the help of Plant Simulation software,the three schemes before and after optimization were simulated,and it was found that the total logistics cost of the first optimized scheme was reduced by 28.14% compared to the original layout,and the total logistics cost of the second optimized scheme was reduced by 29.90%compared to the original layout.At the same time,the data of three aspects including transportation distance,non-logistics relationship,and intersection of transportation routes were compared,which verified the rationality and effectiveness of the optimized schemes.