AUTOMATED LAYOUT DESIGN PROGRAM (ALDEP)

Now we will examine Automated Layout Design Program (ALDEP).

ALDEP is basically a construction algorithm but it can also be used to evaluate two layouts. The
algorithm uses basic data on facilities and builds a layout by successively placing the layout using
relationship information between the departments. The basic inputs to ALDEP are:

1. Length and width of facility.

2. Area of each department.
3. Minimum closeness preference (MCP) value.
4. Sweep width.
5. Relationship chart showing the closeness rating.
6. Location and size of any restricted area.

The procedures adopted for using ALDEP are:

Step 1: Input the following:

1. Length and width of facility.

2. Area of each department.
3. Minimum closeness preference (MCP) value.
4. Sweep width.
5. Relationship chart showing the closeness rating.
6. Location and size of restricted area.

Step 2: One department is selected randomly and placed in the layout.

Step 3: In this step, the algorithm uses minimum closeness required between departments for the
selection of departments to be placed with an earlier placed department. Select the department having
maximum closeness rating. If there is no department having minimum closeness preference then any
department that remains to be placed is selected.

Step 4: If all the departments are placed in the layout, go to step 5. Else, go to step 3.

Step 5: Compute the total score of the layout.

Step 6: If the total score required is the acceptable score, then go to step 7, else go to step 2.

Step 7: Print the current layout and the corresponding score.

The following example illustrate the approach in ALDEP, heuristics.

Example

Develop a layout for the following problem.

 1. Layout and area requirements are shown in Table below.
Table: Layout Requirements

Departmen Area (sq. ft) Number of unit squares

t
1 1200 30
2 800 20
3 600 15
4 1200 30
5 800 20
6 1200 30
7 1200 30
Total 7000 175
Assume one square in the layout to be equal to 40 sq. ft.

Number of unit squares for a department = dept. area in sq. ft/area per square.

Let the size of layout be 15 × 12, and the sweep width be 2 (this means that we will fill 2 columns
simultaneously).

The relationship chart for the example is as follows:

Departmen 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
t
1 E O I O U U
2 E U E I I U
3 O U U U O U
4 I E U I U U
5 O I U I A I
6 U I O U A E
7 U U U U I E

In ALDEP the closeness rating uses the following notations with the following values:

Chosen closeness rating

Absolutely A 64
necessary
Especially important E 16
Important 1 4
Ordinary O 1
Unimportant U 0
Undesirable X –1024
Randomly select the first department in the layout. Place the first department in the upper left corner
and extend it downward. Width of the extension is determined by the sweep width. The next
department begins where the previous department ended and follows the serpentine sweep pattern
(shown in figure below.)

Let department 2 be selected. Number of unit squares in department 1 be 20. Now, 20 square units are
filled in 15 × 12 grids Sweep pattern as shown in figure
below.

Placing department 2 in Layout

Since the minimum closeness between departments required for selection of

departments is I = 4, scan the relationship chart randomly to find the departments
having closeness rating of 4 or greater with department 2. For the above case
closeness rating for the pair (1–2) = 16, (2–4) = 16, (2–-5) = 4 and (2–6) = 4.

Select any department say, department 1. Place department 1 in the layout in a

serpentine pattern as shown in the figure below.
 Placing department 1 in the layout

Repeat the above procedure to

get the final layout as shown in figure below.

Final Layout

After the final layout is obtained, the

score is calculated. The score is the
sum of the closeness ratings of all
the neighbouring departments as
shown in table below.

Table: Closeness rating

Department Closeness rating

pair
(1, 2) 16
(1, 4) 4
(1, 5) 1
(4, 5) 4
(5, 6) 64
(4, 6) 0
(5, 7) 4
(6, 7) 16
(7, 3) 1
(6, 3) 0
Total 110
From the above, the layout score is 2 × 110 = 220. A further iteration should be carried out to check if a
better score can be achieved.

Features of CRAFT

The major features of CRAFT are as listed below:

 Attempts to minimize transportation cost, where transportation cost = flow × distance × unit
cost.
  Required the assumptions that: (1) move costs are independent of the equipment utilization and
(2) move costs are linearly related to the length of the move.
 Distance matrix used in the rectilinear distance between department centroids.

CRAFT being a path-oriented method, the final layout is dependent on the initial layout. Therefore, a
number of different initial layouts should be used as input to the CRAFT layout. CRAFT allows the use of
dummy departments to represent fixed areas in the layout. CRAFT input requirements are:

1. Initial layout.
2. Flow data.
3. Cost per unit distance.
4. Total number of departments.
5. Fixed departments and their location.
6. Area of departments.

The procedures adopted for using CRAFT are:

1. Determine department centroids.

2. Calculate rectilinear distance between centroids.
3. Calculate transportation cost for the layout.
4. Consider department sharing a common border.
5. Determine transportation cost of each departmental interchange.
6. Select and implement the departmental interchange that offers the greatest reduction in
transportation cost.
7. Repeat the procedure for the new layout until no interchange is able to reduce the
transportation cost.

Major disadvantages of using CRAFT

CRAFT, inspite of its popularity has some major drawbacks.

 Because the basis is the cost of materials handling, only production departments are
considered. No service departments are considered.
 An initial idea of the layout is required. Therefore, the technique only applies to the
modification of an existing layout or new layouts where the outline shape is known.
 The distances between the departments is taken as straight lines whereas in practice
movement is usually rectangular along orthogonal lines.

To illustrate the approach to develop a layout, in CRAFT heuristics consider the initial layout and flow
data as in the following example. Assume that the cost per unit transfer to be 1.

Example

Consider the following layout problem with unit cost matrix. Use CRAFT algorithm to obtain layout. The
initial layout is shown in figure below and the flow matrix in table ? ? ? ?
 Initial Layout
Table: Flow Matrix

Departmen A B C D
t
A 30 25 45
B 20 15 20
C 10 20 10
D 100 10 5
Centroids of all the departments in the initial layout are calculated and presented as given below:

(XA, YA) = 10.5, 3.5

(XB, YB) = 10.5, 10.5

(XC, YC) = 3.5, 10.5

(XD, YD) = 3.5, 3.5

Using the rectilinear distance we draw the distance matrix as shown in table below.

Table: Distance Matrix

Departmen A B C D
t
A 0 7 14 7
B 7 0 7 14
C 14 7 0 7
D 7 14 7 0
Total material handling cost is calculated as follows:

Total cost = flow × distance × unit cost

Table: Total cost matrix

Departmen A B C D Cost
t
A 0 210 350 315 875
 B 140 0 105 280 525
C 140 140 0 70 350
D 700 140 35 0 875
Total Cost 2625
Consider various departmental interchange for improvement. Departmental interchange is possible for
departments having common boundary or equal area. The possible department interchanges are as
shown in table below.

Table: Departmental interchanges

Department pair Reason

A-B Common border and equal area
A-C Equal area
A-D Common border and equal area
B-C Common border and equal area
B-D Equal area
C-D Common border and equal area
For the purpose of calculating material handling cost, interchange would mean change in the centroid.
In the same way as we calculated the total cost for the initial layout, we calculate the total cost for each
of the possible interchanges, and select the layout that gives the least total cost.