Optimal design of facility layout for manufacturing system

南地拖车是一家总部位于阿肯色州莱斯布里奇的卡车拖车制造商。该公司的全部产品都是在公司内部制造的。目前加工厂的设施布局不是最优的。在过去的20多年里，它逐渐扩大，不幸的是，这导致了一些遗留问题。非优化的设施布局是最臭名昭著的布局之一。目前的设施布局导致了非增值的物料流动，导致效率和生产率低下。由于目前工厂布局的低效，每年在工厂搬运材料和在制品(WIP)拖车上估计要额外花费4030个工时。它每年花费公司超过25万美元，这些钱本可以更好地花在增值商业活动上。为了解决这一问题，南国拖车计划在2-3年内建造一座具有最佳工厂布局的新工厂。该公司打算通过这一研究项目获得设计最佳设施布局的专业知识。此外，索斯兰拖车公司还希望探索其他可能的合作方向，包括寻找一种新材料用于他们的封闭式货运拖车的墙壁，分析生产流程并寻找可能的改进，以及设计新的悬挂系统。

Southland Trailer is a truck trailer manufacturer based in Lethbridge, AB. The company fabricates their entireproducts in-house. The current facility layout of the fabrication plant is non-optimal. It has been graduallyexpended over the past 20+ years, which, unfortunately, results in some legacy issues. The non-optimal facilitylayout is one of the most notorious. The current facility layout incurs non-value-adding material movements,which leads to low efficiency and productivity. An estimate of extra 4030 labor hours are spent annually onmoving materials and work in process (WIP) trailers through the facility due to the inefficiency of the currentfacility layout. It costs the company more than $250,000 yearly, the money of which could have been betterspent in value-adding business activities. In order to address this issue, Southland Trailer plans to build a newplant with the optimal plant layout within 2-3 years. The company intends to gain expertise in designingoptimal facility layout through this research project. Moreover, Southland Trailer also wants to explore otherpossible directions for collaborations, including looking for a new material to be used for the walls of theirenclosed cargo trailers, analyzing production flow and looking for possible improvement, and designing a newsuspension system.