J Syst Sci Syst Eng (Jun 2008) 17(2):187-203 ISSN: 1004-3756 (Paper) 1861-9576 (Online) DOI: 10.1007/s11518-008-5075-9 CN11-2983/N © Systems Engineering Society of China & Springer-Verlag 2008 CONCURRENT PRODUCTION ENGINEERING SYSTEM FOR BUFFER SIZE AND FLEXIBLE TRANSFER LINE LAYOUT DESIGN ∗ Hidehiko YAMAMOTO 1 Jaber ABU QUDEIRI 2 M. Anouar JAMALI 3 1,2 Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Laboratory, Gifu University, Japan 1 yam-h@gifu-u.ac.jp ( ) 2 k3812203@edu.gifu-u.ac.jp 3 Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Quebec at Trois-Rivers (UQTR), Canada 3 jamali@uqtr.ca Abstract In this paper we propose a COncurrent Production Engineering System (COPES) for the flexible transfer line (FTL) layout design in a restricted area. COPES first determines the buffer size in front of the bay of each machine tool in the FTL and then initializes a computer aided design (CAD) system to draw the FTL in a restricted area. We develop a set of modules systems which have been integrated into a single framework, in accordance with the practice of concurrent engineering. Concurrent engineering involves the cooperation of these activities. It’s expected that the developed COPES can improve the cooperation between production engineers’ and the plant designer. This can be done by enabling the production engineers’ to make better decision regarding FTL buffer size. Keywords: Concurrent engineering, flexible transfer line, layout design, production simulator, buffer size, CAD ∗ The original version was presented on ICSSSM’06. 1. Introduction To design flexible transfer line (FTL), one of the most important factors to take into account is the size of the buffers between each pair of machine tools in the FTL. Many articles and researches related to buffer size have been published (Alabas et al. 2002, Fulya et al. 2002, Roser et al. 2003, Bulgak et al. 1995, Hillier et al. 1993, Gershwin and Schor 1997, Enginarlar et al. 2002). One of the methods for studying the buffer size in FTL is genetic algorithm (GA) (Bulgak et al. 1995, Yamamoto et al. 2003). The proper positioning of FTL components is important in order to efficiently put them through the available plant area. Choosing the optimum position of these components minimizes the FTL area and the total cost of movement between machine tools in the FTL. One of the problems involving a new FTL in any plant is the restricted area. The problem appears if the available area in the plant is less than the required area needed to create the new FTL