Determining the optimal layout?

[Amaelle]

Good day all,
I m currently studying how to determine "the optimal layout" in INDUSTRIAL PLANT & SAFETY WAREHOUSES course, and I was stucked with the following section:
Material Handling operation

Single cycle:
• it is an handling operation of input or output of a SKU
• consists of a round trip transfer between the point I/O and the generic location of storage
• in the input cycle the way back is "unloaded“
• in the output cycle the way to is "unloaded“
and then the slide goes to the following section:

I really need to understand :

1. what do they mean by single cycle?
2. what are they trying to do in the picture i'have posted bellow? I really tried the whole day to find a hint but uselessly

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Charles Link]

You simply want to minimize the average path length. Take $\frac{dr}{dU}=0$. Have you had any calculus yet? After that, there's just a little algebra to see how $U$ and $V$ are related for optimal conditions.

 

[Amaelle]

Thanks for your pr ompt reply,
my issue is not calculus related, i need to understand what do they mean by average path!? what is the idea behind this why is the input out put point different from allocation?
many thanks in advance!

 

[Charles Link]

I didn't look at the diagram very carefully, but they give you the answer=formula here. I don't know how they arrived at their first formula=if you study their diagram, maybe it makes perfect sense, but it really doesn't need to. They give you the formula for $r$, and that is the one that they expect you to use.
One item you should recognize is area $A=UV$. (That's how they got the second formula for $r$ from the first one).

 

[Amaelle]

THANKS!