Optimal Plant Design Using A Non-Linear Generalized Structured Component Analysis Approach

Plant design is essential in improving the performance of a plant, reducing the cost of production, enhancing material handling costs as well as generating a good return on investment. Poorly designed facilities are susceptible to higher production costs and material handling, and inadequate utilization of resources such as This study was conducted to investigate the feasibility of integrating non-linear generalized structured component analysis with systematic layout planning methodology for facility layout design to derive a statistical inference from the combination. The study adopted the non-linear Generalized Structural Component Analysis methodology on a proposed plant layout dehydration of fruits and vegetables. At the end of the study, it was observed that it was possible to adopt non-linear GSCA in plant design to derive meaningful statistical inferences when the ratings were inverted. The study proposes these findings as novel. The transposed rating table results obtained were better than the Initial experiments performed and it’s suggested that when integrating non-linear GSCA to facility design the inverted approach should be adopted. The results also proved that nonlinear generalized structured component analysis is suitable and can be incorporated as a new plant design approach.