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The purpose of this study is to propose an approach for assessing sustainability aspect of facility layouts. Activity relationship chart (ARC) is a widely used assistive tool for facility layout design which assesses closeness requirement among all pairs. In a typical ARC, there are six closeness ratings which may be assigned to each pair of departments. Ratings are evaluated by considering a single factor or an overall rating is provided. On the other hand, there may be more than one criterion which has to be evaluated separately and then a fair decision should be taken by considering the relative weight of factors. With this purpose in mind, ARC alternatives are evaluated on the basis of three factors which are environmental aspect, safety concerns and manufacturing efficiency factors by using TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method.

In this paper, more than one ARC alternatives are evaluated by considering environmental, safety and manufacturing efficiency factors. Alternatives are then ranked via TOPSIS. An empirical case study is also presented to validate how effective the proposed model performs.

The TOPSIS method can be successfully used to choose the most sustainable ARC alternative appropriately by the help of experts. The proposed approach can be beneficial to researchers and practitioners for better understanding the ARC evaluation problem from the perspective of sustainability.

The obtained results confirm that the proposed model can assist practitioners in refining their decision processes, particularly in cases where there are many ARC alternatives to be considered.

This is the first time that this method is used in such a context. This study contributes to literature by presenting practical applications of TOPSIS in the ARC assessment field. It should be highlighted that there is no comparable research on the evaluation of ARCs using TOPSIS. Thus, this study fills the gap by providing an analytical approach in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to plan the layout of the production area of an industrial kitchen of a theme restaurant through the application of the systematic layout planning (SLP) methodology and the establishment of layout indicators with a specific application in the restaurant business.

The authors applied the SLP methodology in the industrial kitchen of a theme restaurant in order to plan and develop layout alternatives. Such layout alternatives were then evaluated according to a set of specific indicators consolidated based on a literature review. Finally, a multi-criteria decision-making tool was used to support the selection of the best layout alternative and suggest to the case study area.

The main results could be highlighted as: first, an area, previously unexplored, of approximately 5.40 m² ended up being used as a productive area for the operations; second, 40 percent reduction in work-in-process by removing the refrigerators of groceries and the freezer from the production area; third, indirect indicators, such as customer satisfaction and the employee’s workplace environment, have increased their performance, since customers were better served and working environment became more conducive to a good employee performance.

Most research in layout planning is typically developed in productive industrial areas, and this paper contributes to the understanding the differences of implementing SLP methodology in a food service business, such as restaurant, and proposes the utilization of specific layout indicators.

The design of the emergency department (ED) requires high precision in the process of distributing spaces. An increase in population and continuous development during the past years caused the addition of new services, changes in patients’ numbers, movement flow and treatment procedures which makes the existing layout plan of the ED no longer appropriate for its current needs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to generate a process of finding better alternatives for ED’s spatial planning.

The genetic algorithm method as a part of the systematic layout planning strategy was adopted for decision-making in redesigning the ED layout and finding the most appropriate alternative. This methodology was applied to a teaching hospital in Jordan to create layout alternatives with better functional dimensions.

The design that is based on the study of the movement of users and the relationship of spaces increases the layout performance.

The structural method of this study can be adopted for different hospital designs, but the results are limited only to the study case itself because of the different factors and data for each building.

This study demonstrates the process of making the most appropriate decision to redesign the ED in the hospital; therefore, the method can be adopted in restructuring the scheme of different hospitals and evaluated, especially before implementation.

In spite of having a number of general‐purpose algorithms for solving plant layout problems, facility planners may still face a challenging task to adjust these algorithms to handle special, but not uncommon, layout problems. The purpose of this study is to propose a new method for addressing the impact of overhead space utilization on a plant layout solution.

A new method for adjusting material flow under a mixed floor and overhead material handling condition is incorporated in an existing plant layout procedure. A case study involving the layout improvement in a lawn mower engine assembly facility is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The analysis of solutions for the case study shows that the layout generated by the proposed modified material flow approach is a more economical solution. The case also shows, when it is important to optimize the use of space, the overhead space should be considered as part of any methodology for designing a good layout.

The proposed modified material flow approach can be applied to any facility where the use of overhead space for material handling is justifiable by limited floor space and/or by high cost of land. The proposed method can be applied to small to medium size problems with minimal computational effort. However, as the size of facility grows, the manual calculation becomes more time consuming and potentially erratic.

This paper should be useful to both researchers and practitioners who deal with overhead space utilization in designing facility layouts.

The purpose of the paper is to highlight the considerations and lessons learned from a re-layout project in an assembly area for productivity improvement. The case study took place in Bosch Rexroth Oil Control Nonantola (Italy) with satisfactory results. The paper suggests how to approach reorganization projects with focus on productivity improvements following defined targets.

After an analysis of the initial status, the authors examine several plausible layout alternatives: the main comparison criteria and their weights are defined. Then a scoring/measuring procedure follows for the criteria of each alternative, and the alternatives are compared using principal parameters analysis (PPA).

The paper lists common considerations and lessons learned in the re-layout process. Using the PPA, the authors validate the best solution for the company.

This paper shares a valuable experience that is general enough to be shared with many other assembly systems. A unique experience combining re-layout planning, MTM and use of PPA is shared with the readers.

This paper proposes to use Muther’s systematic layout planning procedure as the infrastructure to solve a fab layout design problem. A multiple objective decision making tool, analytic hierarchy process, is then proposed to evaluate the design alternatives. The proposed procedure is illustrated to be a viable approach for solving a fab layout design problem through a real‐world case study. It features both the simplicity of the design process and the objectivity of the multiple‐criteria evaluation process as opposed to existing solution methodologies.

The purpose of this article is to present a model to estimate and evaluate the operational costs of alternative layouts for large capacity warehouses or distribution centers with a large variety of goods.

The proposed model is based on time and resources studies per each of the basic activities on a warehouse operation. For validation purposes, the proposed model was applied on a perishable goods warehouse in Mexico. The output data was compared to actual data. Performance measures were operational costs and average picking time.

It was found that the proposed model is robust, flexible, simple and easy to be implemented. The model was used to evaluate two new alternatives of layout and operations of the same warehouse. It was found that the option with the layout with docks on long opposite sides of the warehouse and the operation without a separate picking zone minimizes operational costs.

The richness of the model is strongly supported by the information the warehouse has about its operation. With knowledge of the process, it is required to distinguish deterministic from stochastic basic activities and develop distance computations that depend on the layout being studied.

The approach used to model warehouse operations was to estimate the movements and resource consumption per commodity. This allows the model to be used in every operational context when the complexity of the system is strongly dependent on and proportional to the volume of operations. In addition, it is particularly adequate as a tool to compare average performance measures of different scenarios for the same system.

The model proposed here provides a simple way to estimate particularly operational resource consumptions and picking times as proxy measures for efficiency and efficacy of a warehouse. It uses distance computations, time information and unit occurrence frequencies of basic activities over a single commodity in the system.

Although many new technologies have been developed in facilities design, the systematic layout planning (SLP) procedure is the most widely used among enterprises and the academic world. The practical applications in a traditional SLP require intricate steps yet their results lack stability. It is difficult to attain reasonable results from alternatives derived via traditional SLP. This study proposes concepts and algorithms such as grouping, compounding, and hypothetical distance to modify procedures and enhance practicality in traditional SLP. The proposed modifications were applied to a case study. The results were superior to solutions derived from computer software simulations and by supervisors of the case company. This study believes that the proposed modifications and procedures can enhance the enterprise's ability in facility design.

Relief item distribution to victims is a key activity during disaster response. Currently many humanitarian organizations follow simple guidelines based on experience to assess need and distribute relief supplies. However, the interviews with practitioners suggest a problem in efficiency in relief distribution efforts. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model and solution methodology that can estimate relief center (RC) performance, measured by waiting time for victims and throughput, for any RC design and analyze the impact of key design decisions on these performance measures.

Interviews with practitioners and current practice guidelines are used to understand relief distribution and a queuing network model is used to represent the relief distribution. Finally, the model is applied to data from the 2015 Nepal earthquake.

The findings identify that dissipating congestion created by crowds, varying item assignment decisions to points of distribution, limiting the physical RC capacity to control congestion and using triage queue to balance distribution times, are effective strategies that can improve RC performance.

This research bases the RC designs on Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines and assumes a certain area and volunteer availability.

This paper contributes to humanitarian logistics by discussing useful insights that can impact how relief agencies set up and operate RCs. It also contributes to the queuing literature by deriving analytic solutions for the steady state probabilities of finite capacity, state dependent queues with blocking.

Some of the main features of the major existing approaches designed to solve the multi‐goal layout problem are highlighted. Most of these heuristic approaches are of the improvement type which take account of constraints within areas of departments. Two heuristic approaches of the construction type are outlined. MFLAP (Multi‐goal Facility Layout Planning) is a construction type algorithm based on cell formation technique. MFLAPSA (Multi‐goal Facility Layout Planning under the constraints on Shapes and Areas of Facilities), like MFLAP, is also a construction type heuristic based on cell formation technique but it incorporates additional constraints such as shape, location flexibility and exposure for a department. The procedure and capabilities of MFLAP and MFLAPSA are outlined.