IE 312 Facilities Design and Planning PS # 8
Question # 1
Suppose that a conveyor line is being planned to run into a warehouse. The line
will begin at the point (0, 5) (all coordinates are given in units of tens of feet)
and run parallel to the x-axis into the warehouse. Items entering the warehouse
on the line are picked up at the end of the line and transported directly to one
of the truck docks at the points:
P1 = (7, 10)
P2 = (15, 7)
P3 = (15, 3)
P4 = (12, 0)
There is a trade-off between the cost of the conveyor and the transport cost to
the truck ducks. We can have a short conveyor and high transport cost to the
docks, or a long, expensive conveyor and low transport cost to the docks. Thus
what we seek is a best trade-off.
The distance items travel between the conveyor line end and any one of the
docks may be accurately approximated by the rectilinear distance between the
line end and the dock. From data on expected usage rates of docks, labor costs,
and material transport times, the total annual cost per 10 feet for transporting
items between the end of the line and points P1 through P4 will be $160, $40,
$60, and $140, respectively. The equivalent annual cost per 10 feet of conveyor
is $180.
We wish to find the length of the conveyor so as to minimize the total cost
of the conveyor plus the costs of moving items between the end of the conveyor
and the docks.
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IE 312 Facilities Design and Planning PS # 8
Question # 2
A large corporation has employed a campus plan layout for its corporate head-
quarters. A district heating system is to be installed, which will heat each of
four buildings. Considering the cost of intallation and the heat losses, it is
agreed that the cost for the system is proportional to the square of the Eu-
clidean distance between the heating facility and each building. The constant
of proportionality is the Btus per hour required at each building. The buildings
to be served by the heating system are located as follows: P1 =(18, 5), P2 =(13,
9), P3 =(23, 11), and P4 =(7, 11). The Btu requirements per hour are 12000,
5000, 4000, and 15000, respectively. Find the least-cost location for the central
heating facility.
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IE 312 Facilities Design and Planning PS # 8
Question # 3
Following potential locations are considered for relocating a facility based on a
number of relevant criteria.
Criterion Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4 Site 5 Site 6
Rent cost 20 40 50 80 20 80
($/m²)
Proximity to Excellent Good Good Good Average Excellent
highway and
airport
Building con- Poor Excellent Poor Good Excellent Good
dition
Available in- Good Average Average Good Bad Excellent
dustrial facil-
ities
Length of Bad Good Good Excellent Good Poor
lease
a. Are there any sites which are dominated by others? If yes, which ones?
b. Your work with the decision maker (DM) reveals the relative significances
of these criteria for her, and together you decide to use the following set
of weights:
Criterion Weight
Rent cost ($/m²) 0.3
Proximity to highway and airport 0.2
Building condition 0.2
Available industrial facilities 0.15
Length of lease 0.15
Furthermore, you decide to convert the linguistic evaluations to a numer-
ical scale as follows again after discussing with the DM.
Excellent 1
Good 3
Average 5
Poor 7
Bad 10
Use nij = rij /rmax as the normalization method (rmax is the max value in
the data set). Then, use Weighted Average Method to rank the alternative
sites. Which site should be chosen?
c. The DM revised her weights as 0.35; 0.25, 0.20; 0.10; 0.10. Does the
decision change?