A hierarchical AHP/DEA methodology for the facilities layout design problem

Layout design often has a significant impact on the performance of a manufacturing or service industry system and is usually a multiple-objective problem. Neither an algorithmic nor a procedural layout design methodology is usually effective in solving a practical design problem. This paper proposed a hierarchical analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to solve a plant layout design problem. A computer-aided layout-planning tool was used to generate a considerable numbers of layout alternatives as well as to generate quantitative decision-making unit (DMU) outputs. The qualitative performance measures were weighted by AHP. DEA was then used to solve the multiple-objective layout problem, Empirical illustrations from a practical case study illustrated the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. (C) 2002 Elsevier Sciencc B.V. All rights reserved.