Production Line Layout Planning with Tiered Arrangement Restrictions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing production line design techniques fail to optimize both the configuration and arrangement of production facilities simultaneously, necessitating extensive optimization calculations that are impractical for real-world applications.
Innovation Solution
A production line design system that stores facility and arrangement information, extracts feasible areas, and decides facility arrangements based on restriction levels, enabling efficient planning that minimizes investment costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If optimization calculation is performed to find simultaneous solution for facility configurations and arrangements, then both configuration and arrangement optimization is achieved, but calculation complexity and time required become enormous and impractical
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the facility arrangement problem into multiple levels (first arrangement level for facility groups, second arrangement level for individual facilities) and uses hierarchical region division (first region, second region, third region) to break down the floor space. This segmentation reduces the search space for optimization calculations from enormous to manageable levels, making practical optimization possible.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-dividing the floor into multiple regions with different arrangement restrictions before the actual facility arrangement optimization. It also pre-establishes the hierarchical structure of facility groups and individual facilities. This preliminary structuring guides subsequent optimization calculations, reducing computational complexity while maintaining optimization effectiveness.
2Ease of operation
If existing techniques are used to arrange facilities based on operation frequency information, then operation area positioning is improved, but the technique cannot decide facility configurations and requires enormous optimization calculations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments facility arrangement into multiple levels: first arranging facility groups (production lines) at the first arrangement level, then arranging individual facilities within each group at the second arrangement level. This segmentation enables the system to simultaneously determine both facility configurations and their arrangements without requiring enormous optimization calculations, as each level can be optimized independently using operation frequency information.
3Manufacturing precision
If comprehensive optimization is performed to simultaneously satisfy facility configurations and arrangements, then optimal production line design is achieved, but investment cost increases due to extended design time and complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the production line design into sequential stages: first determining facility group configurations, then determining individual facility arrangements within each group. By segmenting the design process, the system achieves optimal designs through structured optimization at each stage rather than attempting simultaneous comprehensive optimization, thereby reducing design time and investment costs while maintaining design quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary region division of the floor into first, second, and third regions with different arrangement restrictions before optimization. This preliminary structuring guides the optimization process, enabling systematic exploration of design solutions without time-consuming exhaustive searches, thus achieving optimal designs within practical time frames and investment budgets.
Data Source
AI summary
A production line design system stores: facility information that indicates facilities used in a production line of an object product and arrangement levels of regions in which the facilities are respectively arranged, in which the regions have an inclusion relationship, and arrangement restriction information that defines the arrangement restriction of the facilities by dividing arrangement restriction of the facilities into restriction levels that correspond to the regions that have the inclusion relationship. The production line design system extracts a facility arrangement possible area in the respective arrangement levels based on the facility information and the arrangement restriction information, and the decides an arrangement pattern candidate of the facilities with respect to the extracted respective arrangement possible areas based on the facility information and the arrangement restriction information.