Fuzzy development of crisp activity relationship charts for facilities layout

The traditional activity relationship chart (ARC) represents closeness ratings among departments in a facility. Usually these ratings are based on vague quantitative and/or qualitative factors. Some of these factors may have a larger effect on the assignment of the ratings than others. Thus, this paper presents a distinct methodology to develop a crisp activity relationship charts (CARC) based on fuzzy set theory and the pairwise comparison of Saaty's analytical hierarchy process (AHP), which ensures the consistency of the designer's assignments of importance of one factor over another to find the weight of each of the factors in every activity. FUZZY, a computer program developed based on AHP, and the fuzzy decision-making system (FDMS), is used to generate CARC. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.