―National Conference on, Modeling, Optimization and Control, 4 th -6 th March 2015, NCMOC – 2015” 1 Abstract - The facility layout problem has a significant impact on the performance of a manufacturing or service industry system. A vital and must crucial concluding stage in any facility layout problem is the evaluation and selection of the best alternative amongst the ones generated. Several methods have been proposed to compare alternative layouts. These can be primarily classified into qualitative and quantitative methods. The most commonly used quantitative criterion is distance based scoring based on flow distance. A wide variety of qualitative criteria such as adjacency based scoring (requiring subjective AEIOU relationships) and several multi-objective scoring methods are available. However, most of these methods are based on a limited number of evaluation criteria (either quantitative or qualitative) and hence lack an integrated framework for accommodating multiple criteria. The paper explores the use of MADM approaches (SAW, WPM, AHP & TOPSIS) for evaluation of existing layout and two alternative layouts proposed. The paper focusses on the evaluation of layout alternatives and summarizes the rankings of layout alternatives for each of the MADM approaches used. Index Terms— Key Terms – Layout Evaluation, Factor Analysis, MADM, SAW, WPM, AHP, TOPSIS I. INTRODUCTION HE alternative layout options were generated using the Systematic Layout Planning approach proposed by Richard Muther. It was proposed to replace the existing equipment with new CNC mill with two proposed alternatives, the first with U-shape flow and the second with straight-thru flow. The existing and proposed layouts were compared on the nine criteria. Each criterion was weighed on the basis of relative importance to each other. Establishing the weight values for each criterion was a joint decision involving individuals representing production, design, plant engineering, logistics functions. The evaluation criteria (along with the weights) are listed below. 1. Reduced material handling (8) 2. Shorter throughput time (10) 3. Fewer spot shortages (4) 4. Better quality (6) 5. Ease of effective supervision (9) Prof. Rajesh Dhake is Associate Professor in Industrial & Production Engg. Dept. at Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune Neha Gujar & Meenal Deshmukh are Final Year, B.Tech., Industrial Engineering Students at Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune Prof. Dr. N.R. Rajhans is Professor and Head, Production Engg. Dept., COEP, Pune 6. Ease of installation (7) 7. Acceptance by employees (8) 8. Utilization of space (8) 9. Volume-distance product (20) A rating sheet was prepared and circulated to all concerned. Every individual rated the three alternatives on five alphabetical ratings A,E,I,O,U carrying weightage of 32,16,8,4,2 respectively. Ratings of all concerned were consolidated in one sheet. Figure 1 shows a sample rating sheet. II. LAYOUT EVALUATION USING MADM METHODS The three layout alternatives were then evaluated on the basis of following methods and ranked to identify the best layout under each method: 1. Factor Analysis 2. Simple Additive Weightage (SAW) 3. Weighted Product Method (WPM) 4. Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution TOPIS 5. Analtical Hierachy Process (AHP) A. Factor Analysis Under this method, qualitative ratings with values are given for each criterion. Greatest limitation of this method is that it only considers ratings on four parameters: A (Almost Perfect) (4), E (Especially Good) (3), I (Important Results) (2), O (Ordinary Results) (1). Every option/alternative is evaluated on various evaluation criteria / attributes and are given rating as either A, E, I or O. Each criteria is given weightage and the final scores for each option/alternative are calculated as sum product of the weights and ratings. The option/alternative with highest score is ranked first and so on. The ranking of the layout options under factor analysis was B → C → A with layout scores of 221, 196 and 171 respectively. Comparison of MADM Methods for Layout Evaluation & Selection Prof. Rajesh Dhake, Prof. Dr. N.R. Rajhans, Neha Gujar, Meenal Deshmukh, T