Quantitative and qualitative indices for the plant layout evaluation problem

[[abstract]]In the past two decades, the researchers used to develop simulation models or mathematical programming models to estimate the performance measures of a production system which may or may not include the considerations of layout design, rather than develop indices specifically for evaluating a layout alternative. These models usually ask for very detailed information. Most of them involve oversimplifying assumptions and request overwhelming computational efforts such that they cannot be manipulated with ease in practice. The limitations and deficiencies of previous indices and performance measures include: parameters hard to obtain; inappropriate detailed data requirement; much effort to obtain little accuracy improvement; data available after operations start; no generic approach and no clear validation provided. To overcome these deficiencies, the generic approaches for developing quantitative and qualitative indices are provided and new indices for the flow criterion group and environment criterion group are presented. The parameters of each index are easier to obtain and do not require much effort on data collection. The validations of each quantitative index with examples are also provided. The generic approaches also allow the users to revise the indices according to the specific case considered