Facility layout and material handling system design integration in manufacturing systems

The interaction between the facility layout and the material handling system is widely recognized. The impact of these factors on the performance of a manufacturing system is also widely acknowledged. However, developing solution methodologies that simultaneously determine the facility layout and material handling system is a difficult task. This research investigates the integrated design problems in manufacturing systems, then proposes design procedures to solve the integrated design problems.;The integrated design in this research refines the distance measurements based on the type of material handling systems being used. It is different than most existing methodologies which either solve a material handling system design problem based on an existing layout, or solve a layout design problem using a loose distance approximation.;This research successfully solves the integrated layout and material handling system design problem. The proposed methodologies are illustrated through three specific application areas: flexible manufacturing system with an undirected flow path, flexible manufacturing system with a directed flow path and semiconductor fabrication facilities.;This research serves as an important step forward towards ideal goal of completely integrating the facility design problems in manufacturing systems.