A novel facility layout planning and optimization methodology

This paper presents a novel factory planning system for real-time on-site facility layout planning (FLP). Two facility layout planning modules are supported, viz., manual and automatic. In this system, a fast modelling method has been developed where users can construct existing facilities as virtual primitive models. A criterion and constraint definition mechanism is provided to define and customize the planning criteria and constraints to suit specific requirements of different FLP tasks, and an Analytical Hierarchy Process–Genetic Algorithm (AHP–GA) based optimization scheme is adopted for automatic layout planning. Augmented reality (AR) is used to provide visualization of the layout process.