INEN 416 Facilities Location, Layout, and Material Handling Systems

Homework Assignments Page

AS/RS Design - Recommended exercises; Not for a grade

Solve problems 10.37, 10.39, and 10.44.

Warehouse Layout - Recommended exercises; Not for a grade

Solve problems 10.21, 10.22 and 10.23. Solve 10.21 a second time assuming that Products A, B, C, D are shipped 20%, 35%, 75%, 55% through Dock 2 and 80%, 65%, 25%, 45% through Dock 3, respectively.

Determining Number of Vehicles - Due December 13, 2004

Estimate the number of vehicles required for an AGV system operating in this facility using the Excel tool. The flow data for an 8 hour shift is contained in this file. Assume that the top vehicle speed is 200 fpm and that the vehicles travel at 85% of this speed when carrying a load. The pickup or deposit time is about 25 seconds each. Similar systems have experienced about 10% downtime for battery changing, preventive maintenance, failures, etc. What is the lower bound on the vehicle requirements? What is the best estimate of the number of vehicles needed for this system? How sensitive is this result to variations in the dynamic operating characteristics of the system?

Guidepath Design - Due December 13, 2004

Determine the guidepath design for the layout shown in Figure 6.29. Assume that there is an aisle around the perimeter of the facility and along each department boundary. Assume each aisle is wide enough for only a single lane and that a unidirectional path is desired. Use both the grid heuristic and the path method to determine a guidepath design.

Empty Vehicle Flow Estimation - Due December 13, 2004

For the following from-to matrix, determine the empty or unloaded vehicle flows using both best-case and expected-case dispatching. For the best-case, setup and solve both the network problem and the corresponding linear program.

From-To Flow Matrix
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J
A	-	0	12	0	132	16	0	220	20	24
B	0	-	176	0	216	0	144	128	0	0
C	0	0	-	0	0	184	0	0	28	0
D	212	136	240	-	36	0	236	0	164	0
E	0	0	140	0	-	0	192	0	0	160
F	0	180	0	188	108	-	248	228	0	0
G	172	0	156	0	0	0	-	112	224	152
H	0	0	32	40	204	0	0	-	0	0
I	0	468	0	0	104	156	0	148	-	200
J	0	124	196	120	0	116	0	108	0	-

Distance Matrix
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J
A	-	45	65	75	135	150	100	135	105	195
B	45	-	50	50	90	105	105	90	90	150
C	65	50	-	70	140	145	155	130	90	180
D	75	50	70	-	80	125	155	60	40	110
E	135	90	140	80	-	45	75	40	120	50
F	150	105	145	125	45	-	50	85	165	75
G	100	105	155	155	75	50	-	115	195	105
H	135	90	130	60	40	85	115	-	80	50
I	105	90	90	40	120	165	195	80	-	90
J	195	150	180	110	50	75	105	50	90	-

Material Handling Introduction - Due November 29, 2004 (Note this homework is due after the next exam, but I strongly encourage you to complete it prior to the exam.)

Work problems 5.2, 5.6, 5.13 (b), 5.17, and 5.21.

Material Handling Overview - Recommended exercises; Not for a grade

Complete the e-learning courses, Introductory Concepts in Material Handling and An Introduction to Basic Material Handling Equipment, available at http://www.mhia.org/et/et_mhi_elessons_home.cfm. These pages may require a free registration step in order to monitor your progress through the material.

Complete the self-study interactive CD-ROM on the 10 Principles of Material Handling. The program is available on your J: drive (//cannibal/apps) in the PoMH subdirectory from the IE computer labs. This is a multimedia CD with audio and video, so you will need to bring headphones to hear the audio in the computer lab.

Computer Aided Layout Software - Due ~~November 24, 2004~~ Postponed to December 1

Solve problems 6.20 and 6.22 with the Excel software tool ~~and with LayOpt~~. Experiment with different parameter settings to determine the best layouts from each package. How do the solutions compare? How do the software packages compare (solution quality, data requirements, ease of use, etc.)

Solve problems 6.10 with FactoryPlan. How does this approach and software compare to the above packages?

Computer Aided Layout Procedures - Due November 24, 2004 (Note this homework is due after the next exam, but I strongly encourage you to complete it prior to the exam.)

Solve the problems 6.24, 6.26, 6.29, and 6.40. Also, use the ALDEP placement procedure to solve the problem data from 6.22 with the placement sequence of D, G, B, C, J, A, F, I, H, E. Assume that the desired facility size is 110 ft. by 140 ft. Use grid sizes of 50 sq. ft. and 100 sq. ft. and sweep widths of 3 and 5.

Relationship Determination - Due October 11, 2004

Solve the following problems using the specified procedures. Be sure to clearly show the process you followed and each step of the development of your solution.

Solve problem 6.9a.

Use Algorithm 1 from the notes to develop a relationship diagram for the data in problem 6.10.

Use Algorithm 2 from the notes (TCR approach) to develop a unit block plan for the data in problem 6.11.

Use both the Deltahedron heuristic and the structured graph procedure to develop an adjacency graph for the data in 6.20. What is the efficiency of each graph?

Develop the QAP formulation for the flow data from problem 10.16. Compute the lower bound. Develop an initial solution with the construction heuristic and then use this solution as input to the improvement heuristic. Compute the cost of each solution and compare them to the lower bound.

Sample solutions

This page was last updated on December 10, 2004.