An improved simulated annealing for facility layout problems in cellular manufacturing systems

In this paper, we formulate a model solving both inter-cell and intra-cell facility layout problems for cellular manufacturing systems. This model minimizes the total material handling distance on the shop floor. Due to the complexity of the problem, we propose an improved simulated annealing algorithm to solve this problem. This algorithm modifies the generation mechanism of neighborhood configurations. This new generation mechanism can always generate a neighborhood configuration that satisfies all of the zoning constraints. Then, the comparison between the improved simulated annealing algorithm and Kouvelis's is conducted. The results show that the improved simulated annealing algorithm produces the same solution quality while requiring less computation time as the problem size is increased.