Citation: Zhang, Z.; Wu, L.; Wu, Z.;
Zhang, W.; Jia, S.; Peng, T.
Energy-Saving Oriented
Manufacturing Workshop Facility
Layout: A Solution Approach Using
Multi-Objective Particle Swarm
Optimization. Sustainability 2022, 14,
2788. https://doi.org/10.3390/
su14052788
Academic Editors: João Carlos de
Oliveira Matias and Paolo Renna
Received: 20 January 2022
Accepted: 25 February 2022
Published: 27 February 2022
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Article
Energy-Saving Oriented Manufacturing Workshop Facility
Layout: A Solution Approach Using Multi-Objective Particle
Swarm Optimization
Zhongwei Zhang
1,2
, Lihui Wu
3,
*, Zhaoyun Wu
1
, Wenqiang Zhang
4
, Shun Jia
5
and Tao Peng
2,
*
1
School of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Henan University of Technology, Zhengzhou 450001, China;
zzw_man@haut.edu.cn (Z.Z.); wuzhaoyun@haut.edu.cn (Z.W.)
2
State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, School of Mechanical Engineering,
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
3
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai 201418, China
4
School of Information Science and Engineering, Henan University of Technology, Zhengzhou 450001, China;
zhangwq@haut.edu.cn
5
Department of Industrial Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology,
Qingdao 266590, China; herojiashun@163.com
* Correspondence: wulihui@sit.edu.cn (L.W.); tao_peng@zju.edu.cn (T.P.)
Abstract:
Low-carbon sustainable development has become the consensus of manufacturing enter-
prises to fulfill their social responsibilities. Facility layout is an essential part of manufacturing system
planning. Current research has demonstrated the advantages of energy saving on the manufacturing
system level where operational methods (e.g., energy-efficient production scheduling and path plan-
ning) can be utilized and do not require massive investment in the existing legacy system. However,
these efforts are mostly based on the existing fixed facility layout. Meanwhile, although facility layout
problems have been extensively studied so far, the related work seldom involves the optimization of
energy consumption (EC) or other EC-related environmental impact indicators, and does not clearly
reveal if EC can be an independent optimization objective in facility layout. Accordingly, whether the
energy-saving potential of a manufacturing system can be further tapped through rational facility
layout is the gap of the current study. To address this, an investigation into energy-saving oriented
manufacturing workshop facility layout is conducted. Correspondingly, an energy-efficient facility
layout (EFL) model for the multi-objective optimization problem that minimizes total load transport
distance and EC is formulated, and a multi-objective particle swarm optimization-based method is
proposed as the solution. Furthermore, experimental studies verify the effectiveness of the presented
model and its solution, indicating that EC can be regarded as an independent optimization objective
during facility layout, and EFL is a feasible energy-saving approach for a manufacturing system.
Keywords:
energy consumption; energy-efficient facility layout; multi-objective optimization;
multi-objective particle swarm optimization
1. Introduction
Climate warming is a global environmental problem, and the main reason is the
increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. As an active response
to the global climate change crisis, achieving carbon peak and carbon neutralization is a
significant development strategy for China and the world’s major economies. The manu-
facturing industry is the pillar of social and economic development, which is also the major
source of resource consumption and waste generation. In China, carbon dioxide emissions
mainly stem from energy activities, and statistics indicate that the energy consumed by
the manufacturing industry takes up nearly 61.6% of total national energy consumption
Sustainability 2022, 14, 2788. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052788 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
