Congestion in Facilities Location and Layout

National Science Foundation

Congestion in Facilities Location and Layout: Deterministic and Stochastic Models

•Description
•Objectives
•Personnel
•Papers and Talks

Description

The project aims at developing a common theory base to model movement and resultant congestion in the context of facilities location and facilities layout. The motivation stems from the fact that the two bodies of literature in facility layout and facility location have generally evolved separately — facility layout deals with the simultaneous placement of multiple finite area entities such as departments or cells, while facility location deals with the placement of infinitesimal-sized facilities, perhaps in the presence of finite-sized barriers to travel or forbidden regions for new location. The objective is to produce a superior class of models (over the traditional centroid distance and unit cost measures) that are expected to provide better performance in real-life applications via the explicit consideration of slow-downs, congestion, flow capacity, and accurate distances.

The research work has three main tasks.

The first one is called the Planar Facility Location Problem with Generalized Congested Regions that advances and unifies existing restricted facility location literature by common modeling of three types of closed and bounded regions in the plane: Barriers, through which neither travel nor facility location is permitted, Forbidden Regions in which facility location is prohibited, and Congested Regions in which facility location is prohibited but through which travel is permitted at an additional cost per unit distance (denoted by a congestion factor). In the dynamic/stochastic version of this problem the congestion factor might change with time of day (to represent rush hour traffic) or be a random variable.

The second research task is called the Connection Location Problem. We use the term “connection” in a generic sense to define a connected part of a manufacturing facility or an urban flow network that links different sets of departments/cells or facilities. The deterministic version of this task concerns the specific problem of variable capacity sizing and selection/location of connections within a facility layout/location context in order to minimize the sum of the fixed connection installation costs and proportional material movement costs in the material handing system (MHS). The stochastic version of this task concerns selection/location and the service rate of the connections (and to assign the flows) so as to minimize the sum of the fixed connection installation costs, the queueing delay cost, and the material movement cost in the MHS, that take into consideration the congestion effects.

The third task is software development to embody the theoretical results of the study as well as development of Educational material.

Objectives

Intellectual Merits:

The first task would study the plant layout problem in which distance measures vary in different sections of the plant, and also consider location problems in a modeling framework that simultaneously allows for barriers, forbidden regions and congested regions. The second task would allow for modeling of aisle capacities and placement and add significantly to the limited literature available in this area. This task will introduce and research a new concept in location theory relative to connections. The third task would create a software that would be the first in the plant layout area to allow for detailed specificity on distance measurement, and unique from a location perspective to allow simultaneous consideration of generalized congested regions. It would also address connection sizing/location.

Broader Impacts:
Training of two doctoral and two masters students and generation of about five articles in premier scientific journals and also associated teaching materials. Involvement of students from underrepresented groups to participate in this project (through SUNY Alliance for Minority Participation program). Undergraduate student participation to be included via an REU supplement.
On the application front, the project will provide practitioners with a readily available tool (software) for location/layout design. The broad dissemination of our work is to be achieved with research publications, and embodying those concepts in instructional material and software for outreach to participants beyond the home institution’s boundary.

Personnel

Investigators:
Dr. Rakesh Nagi
117 Transportation Building
104 S. Mathews
Urbana Illinois 61801
Phone: (217) 244-3848
Fax: (217) 244-5705
E-mail: nagi@illinois.edu

Dr. Rajan Batta, Professor
Department of Industrial Engineering
State University of New York at Buffalo
420 Bell Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-2050
U.S.A.
Telephone: (716) 645-2357
FAX: (716) 645-3302
E-mail: batta@eng.buffalo.edu

Graduate Students:

  • Min Zhang; Ph.D. 2007. “Designing the Layout and Routing for a Manufacturing Facility to Mitigate Workflow Congestion.” (co-advised with Rajan Batta). Currently: Operations Research Analyst, Avis Budget Group, Inc.
  • Melih Temel: Ph.D. Student, “Warehouse Layout, Order Picking and Sorting.” Department of Industrial Engineering, University at Buffalo.
  • Simin Huang: Simin Huang; PhD 2004. “The Connection Location and Sizing Problem: Models, Methods and Applications to Supply Chain Design.” (co-advised with Rajan Batta). Currently: Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University China.
  • Avijit Sarkar: Ph.D. 2004, “Finite-Size Facility Placement in the Presence of Generalized Congested Regions.” (co-advised with Rajan Batta). Position: Position: Assistant Professor, School of Business, University of California, Redlands CA.
  • Hari Kelachankuttu: M.S. 2003, “Contour Line Construction for a New Rectangular Facility in an Existing Layout with Rectangular Departments.”

Undergraduate Students:

  • Lisa Murawski (2004), Senior BS Student, Department of Industrial Engineering, University at Buffalo.
  • Shlagha Jain (2006), Senior BS Student, Department of Industrial Engineering, University at Buffalo.

Papers and Talks

Papers:

Journal Papers accepted:

  • Zhang, M., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “Modeling of Workflow Congestion and Optimization of Flow Routing in a Manufacturing/Warehouse Facility,” Management Science, 2009, Vol. 55(2), pp. 267-280.
  • Zhang, M., Savas, S., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “Facility Placement with Sub-Aisle Design in an Existing Layout,” to appear European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 197(16), August 2009, pp. 154-165. Download(PDF)
  • Sarkar, A., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “Finding Rectilinear Least Cost Paths in the Presence of Convex Polygonal Congested Regions,” to appear Computers and Operations Research, 2009, Vol. 36(2), pp. 2009. Download(PDF)
  • Kelachankuttu, H., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “Contour Line Construction for a New Rectangular Facility in an Existing Layout with Rectangular Departments,” European Journal of Operational Research, 2007, Vol. 180, pp. 149-162. Download(PDF)
  • Sarkar, A., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “Planar Area Location/Layout Problem in the Presence of Generalized Congested Regions with the Rectilinear Distance Metric,” IIE Transactions on Design and Manufacturing, 2005, Vol. 37(1), pp. 35-50. Download(PDF)
  • Huang, S., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “Distribution Network Design: Selection and Sizing of Congested Connections,” Naval Research Logistics, 2005, Vol. 52, pp. 701-712. Download(PDF)
  • Huang, S., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “Simultaneous Siting and Sizing of Distribution Centers on a Plane,” accepted to Annals of Operations Research, July 2005. Download(PDF)
  • Sarkar, A., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “Placing a Finite Size Facility with a Center Objective on a Rectilinear Plane with Barriers,”European Journal of Operational Research, 2007, Vol. 179, pp. 1160-1176. Download(PDF)

Journal Papers submitted:

  • Huang, S., Batta, R. and Nagi, R. “An Integrated Model for Space Determination and Site Selection of Distribution Centers,” submitted European Journal of Operational Research, Jan 2009.Download(PDF)

Talks:

  • Zhang, M., Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “Alleviate Congestion in a Facility Layout: Reroute Flows, Relocate Departments or a Combination of Both?,” invited (sponsored by Location Analysis cluster) presentation in the INFORMS Fall 2005 Conference, San Francisco CA, November 2005.
  • Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “A Strategic Model for Distribution Center Space Sizing and Location,” 8th International Material Handling Research Colloquium, Graz, Austria, June 2004.
    Sarkar, A., Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “The Planar Area Location/Layout Problem,” 13th Industrial Engineering Research Conference, Houston TX, May 2004.
  • Sarkar, A., Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “Finding Rectilinear Least Cost Paths with Convex Polygonal Congested Regions,” invited (sponsored by Location Analysis cluster) presentation in the INFORMS Fall 2004 Conference, Denver CO, October 2004.
  • Huang, S., Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “Integrated Location and Sizing of Distribution Centers on a Plane,” invited (sponsored by Transportation Science & Logistics cluster) presentation in the INFORMS Fall 2004 Conference, Denver CO, October 2004.
  • Kelachankuttu, H., Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “Contour line construction for a new rectangular facility in an existing layout with rectangular departments,” invited (Facility Planning and Design) presentation in the 13th Industrial Engineering Research Conference, Houston TX, May 2004.
  • Huang, S., Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “Selection and Space Requirement for Congested Connections,” invited (sponsored by Location Analysis cluster) planned presentation in the INFORMS Fall 2003 Conference, Atlanta GA, October 2003.
  • Sarkar, A., Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “Planar Facility Location and Placement in the Presence of Generalized Congested Regions,” invited (sponsored by Location Analysis cluster) planned presentation in the INFORMS Fall 2003 Conference, Atlanta GA, October 2003.
  • Huang, S., Batta, R. and Nagi, R., “Selection and Sizing of Congested Connections for a Transportation Network,” invited presentation in the EURO/INFORMS Joint International Meeting, Istanbul Turkey, July 2003.

Poster:

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