An Integrated AHP.VIKOR Methodology for Facility Layout Design

A facility layout design (FLD) problem can be generally introduced as assignment of facilities (departments) to a site such that a set of criteria are satisfied or some objectives are minimized (maximized). Hence, it can be considered as a multi-criteria problem due to the presence of qualitative criteria such as maintenance or flexibility and quantitative criteria such as the total cost of handling material. The VIKOR method was developed to solve multiple criteria decision making problems with conflicting and non-commensurable (different units) criteria, assuming that compromising is acceptable for conflict resolution, the decision maker wants a solution that is the closest to the ideal, and the alternatives are evaluated according to all established criteria. This paper proposes a hierarchical analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and VIKOR approach to solve the FLD problem. A computer-aided layout-planning tool is adopted to generate the facility layout problems, as well as their quantitative data. The qualitative performance measures are weighted by AHP. VIKOR is then used to solve the FLD problem. Finally, the proposed integrated procedure is applied to three real-time examples.