Factory layout change are becoming more frequent and have much higher requirements for quality and efficiency. Such an adaption process usually involves a redesign of the production layout. Companies are striving to continuously and effectively improve their existing production systems, adapt to demand and remain competitive in the global market. TodayвЂ™s manufacturing industry faces great challenges owing to an increasing awareness of environmental concerns and the trend-shift from mass production to mass customization. Also, an attempt has been made to help the administration to decide the changes in the exiting layout by implementing the well-known 'cost-benefit-analysis'.ДЄbstract: Factory layout planning (FLP) has been a long-standing area that largely influences the overall productivity of the manufacturing practice. The results revealed that the proposed approach is well suited to solve the problem effectively. Moreover, the Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) method has been integrated with GA to enhance the local search of optimal solution. Genetic Algorithm (GA) is applied to deal with this problem while considering handling and moving cost of facilities as well as setup cost in a job shop type of production system. Therefore, a nature inspired algorithm i.e. This problem is itself a Non-Polynomial hard and considering the various cost factors makes it more difficult to attain the optimum solution. By keeping this concept in mind, the present study deals with the development of a model to solve facility layout problem evolving job shop production system.

These changes lead to makes the improvement in the existing layout of available facilities on shop floor to cope up with the growing market competition. It is the aim that Virtual Reality digital twins could inform the safe implementation of Human-Robot Collaborative strategies in factories of the future.ДЄbstract: Today's techno savvy world is evolving with the prompt changes in technology, everyday fluctuation in demand of products as well as the increasing diversity of products, the exiting layout of facilities may invalid frequently. A set of established metrics as well as a newly developed Kinetic Energy Ratio metric are used to analyse human reactions and validate the effectiveness of the Virtual Reality environment. This paper presents the use of a Virtual Reality digital twin of a physical layout as a mechanism to understand human reactions to both predictable and unpredictable robot motions. This has hindered the development of human robot collaborative strategies as well as the ability of authorities to pass regulations on how humans and robots should work together in close proximities. Wherever humans and industrial robots share a common workplace, accidents are likely to happen and always unpredictable. The case study shows that the allocation of shortcut conveyor can improve the loop layout performance as it can reduce the traffic congestion of a part and reduce its travel distance by 18.77 %.ДЄbstract: Testing and implementation of Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) could be dangerous due to the high-speed movements and massive forces generated by industrial robots.

A case study with the allocation of a shortcut conveyor in a loop layout in different locations conducted within the virtual platform has proven that this platform is an effective alternative solution tool for loop layout decision. This platform allows the user to modify the layout through direct interaction and evaluate the performance of the designed layout for multiple times to obtain the optimal layout design.

In this proposed approach, a virtual loop layout model has been developed as an intuitive and interactive platform for loop layout planning and evaluation in real-time control. This paper proposed an interactive solution approach using virtual reality technology for loop layout planning to reduce the gap between numerical results and the real situation through enhanced human-machine interface. The traditional methods of solving facility layout planning are mainly numerical- and analytical-based simulation which might not reveal the actual situation of a manufacturing system. Abstract: Development of the manufacturing sector has sparked a wide interest in the study of facility layout problem since the past century.

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