Facility layout

Plant location

 Minimum cost of production and distribution

 Room for expansion, living conditions for plant operations,
surrounding community
 Factors to be considered:
 Raw material availability
 Markets
 Energy availability
 Climate
 Transportation Facilities
 Human resource availability
 Taxation and legal restrictions
 Community factors
 Facilities layout

 Facility layout refers to the specific arrangement of

physical facilities
 Layout design for equipment, machinery, and
furnishings, production, support and personal areas.
 Layout is affected by:
 Centralised or decentralised storage of WIP, tooling and
supplies
 Unit load size
 Degree of automation
 Type and level of inventory and control of materials
 Necessity of layout

 When a new facility is constructed

 There is a significant change in demand or
throughput volume
 A new good or service is introduced to the customer
benefit package
 Different processes, equipment, and/or technology
are installed
 Some examples

 Washington Mutual Inc. actually patented its designs

for branch banks
 Mercedes Benz, after locating its factory in Vance,
hired managers from various companies to finalize
factory layout
 Honda of America considers its factory tours one of
its best advertisements
 Lenscrafters(an optical chain) has integrated its
manufacturing process into the service facility to
provide rapid order response
 Classification of layouts

 Process layout
 Product layout
 Fixed position layout
 Hybrid layout or Cellular layout or Group
Technology(GT)
 Process layout

 Popularly called functional layouts; group similar

machines together in departments or work centers
according to process or function they perform
 Characteristic of intermittent operations or job shops, or
batch production – variety of customers are served with
different needs
 Volume of each customer order is relatively low
 Sequence of operations required to complete each
customer order can vary considerably – incur setup times
 Main advantage is flexibility and main disadvantage is
inefficiency – queues tend to develop
 Advantages and Limitations

 Advantages
 Lower investment in equipment

 Diversity of job leads to increased worker satisfaction

 Disadvantages
 High movement and transportation costs

 More complicated planning and control systems

 Longer total processing times

 Higher worker skill requirements

Process layout schematic
Process Layout
 Product layout

 A product layout is an arrangement based on the

sequence of operations during the manufacturing of
a good or delivery of a service
 Primarily known as assembly lines where machines
are arranged in a line according to the sequence of
operations necessary to assemble a particular
product
 Typically each product has its own specific line
 Flow of work is orderly and efficient
 Special machines can be purchased to match specific
processing requirement of the product
 Advantages and Limitations

 Advantages
 Lower WIP inventories

 Shorter Processing times and less material handling

 Lower labor skills

 Disadvantages
 Breakdown of one machine can cause the entire process to
shut down
 A change in product design or new product introduction
requires major changes in layout
Product layout schematic
 Fixed Position layout

 Fixed position layouts are used in projects where the

product cannot be moved
 Used when the product is too fragile, bulky, or heavy to move
 Equipment, materials, workers, and other resources are
bought to the production site
 Equipment utilization is low – specifically because
many times it is cheaper to leave the equipment idle
at the site
 Cost of moving is expensive
 Mostly leased or sub-contracted
 Cellular Layout

 Group Technology or cellular layout brings together

dissimilar machines into cells
 Work on products that have similar design or
processing characteristics
 Similar to process layout
 Cells designed to perform specific set of processes
 Similar to product layout
 Cells dedicated to a limited range of products
Cellular Layout
 Comparison of Basic layout patterns

Characteristic Product Process Group Layout Fixed Position

Layout Layout Layout
Demand High Low Moderate Very Low
Volume
Equipment High Low Moderate Moderate
Utilization
Automation High Moderate High Moderate
Potential
Setup/Change High Moderate Moderate High
over
requirements
Flexibility Low High Moderate Moderate

Type of Highly General Moderate Moderate

equipment specialized Purpose specialization specialization
 Layout Design Procedures

 Manual methods and Computerized methods

 Single, large resource with a well defined set of operations

 Criteria for selecting the layout

 Minimization of material handling(MH) cost
 Depreciation of MH equipment, variable operating costs and labor
expenses
 Directly proportional to frequency of movement of material
 Length of the material to be moved
 Designing Product Layouts

 Flow blocking delay occurs when a work center

completes a unit but cannot release it because the in-
process storage at the next stage is full
 Lack of work delay occurs whenever one stage
completes work and no units from the previous stage
are awaiting processing
 An assembly line is a product layout dedicated to
combining the components of a good or service that
has been created previously
 Assembly line balancing

 Assembly line balancing is a technique to group

tasks among workstations so that each workstation
has-in the ideal case-the same amount of work
 Understand Demand Flexibility and Design
Flexibility
 Information needed
 The set of tasks to be performed and the time required to
perform each task
 The precedence relations among the tasks
 The desired output rate or forecast of demand for the assembly
line
 Cycle Time

 Cycle Time is the interval between successive outputs

coming off the assembly line
Operation
0.5 0.2 0.3 Time(minutes/part)

A B C

Maximum operation time ≤ CT ≤ Sum of operation times

CT = A/R
Where A = available time to produce the output
R = output rate

Find - To produce at least 600 units per 8 hour shift, the cycle time
must not be greater than ____
 Continued

 Minimum number of workstations required = Sum of task

times/ Cycle time
= Σt/CT
Hence
Total time available = (Number of work stations)(Cycle time)= N x CT
Total idle time = N x CT – Σt
Assembly line efficiency = Σt/(N x CT)
Balance delay = 1 – Assembly line efficiency

 One objective of assembly line balancing is to maximize the line

efficiency
 Line Balancing Approaches

 Tasks for Producing in-line skate

 Assemble wheels, bearings, and axle hardware (2.0 min)

 Assemble brake housing and pad (0.2 min)

 Complete wheel assembly (1.5 min)

 Inspect wheel assembly (0.5 min)

 Assemble boot (3.5 min)

 Join boot and wheel subassemblies (1.0 min)

 Add line and final assembly (0.2 min)

 Perform final assembly (0.5 min)

3.5 min ≤ Cycle Time (CT) ≤ 9.4 min

 Continued

 Given,
 Target output rate is 360 units per week and operating one
shift per day for 5 days per week (One shift of 7.2 hours)

 Cycle time (CT) = A/R = 7.2*60/(360/5) = 6.0 min/unit

 Minimum number of workstations = Σt/CT = 9.4/6.0 = 1.57
 Rounded to 2
 Precedence Network
1

3 4 6 7 8

2 5
 Continued

Workstation Tasks Total Time Idle Time

A 1,2,5 5.7 min 0.3 min
B 3,4,6,7,8 3.7 min 2.3 min
Total 9.4 min 2.6 min
• Total time available = N x CT = 2x6 = 12 minutes
• Total idle time = N x CT – Σt = 12 – 9.4 = 2.6 minutes
• Assembly line efficiency = Σt/(N x CT) = 9.4/12 = 78.3 %

• Target efficiency for most assembly lines is 80% to 90% dependent on

• Degree of automation
• Workforce skills
• Inspection stations

• Mixed model assembly line balancing problems are considerably difficult to

solve
 Designing Process Layouts

 A load matrix lists the number of moves from one

work center to another over some time period, such
as one year
 Approach taken
 Design a trial layout
 Compute the distances between work centers
 Multiply interdepartmental distances by the volume of flow
between work centers to create volume distance matrix, then
compute total cost
 Use volume distance matrix to propose changes in current
layout
 Example : Home video equipment

D12 = x1 – x2 + y1 – y2

Space Receiving Machining Pressing Cleaning Plating Painting Assembly Shipping

need(sq
ft)
Receiving 1200 200 100
Machining 1800 350 60 20
Pressing 2400 150 200 100 250
Cleaning 600 500 200
Plating 1200 50 400
Painting 900 300
Assembly 2400 600
Shipping 1500
Volume (Load Matrix)
 Continued
10
9
Receiving
Receiving Machining
8
7 Pressing

Machining Pressing 6
Plating Painting Cleaning
5

Painting Plating Cleaning 4

3

Assembly 2 Shipping Assembly

1
Shipping 0
0 5 10 15
Material flow at HVE Inc. Initial Layout for HVE Inc.
 Continued

Receiving Machining Pressing Cleaning Plating Painting Assembly Shipping

Receiving 10000 5500

Machining 24500 1800 1400
Pressing 14250 23000 5500 28750
Cleaning 30000 12000
Plating 2000 24000
Painting 12000
Assembly 39000
Shipping

Volume distance matrix for initial layout

Total volume distance = 251,700
 Manual Methods

 Travel Chart and Systematic Layout Planning

 Data Collection
 Study of product mix, quantity of each product to be produced,
routing for each product
 Flow Analysis
 Identifying each department, inputs/outputs, specifications
 Quantitative Analysis
 Flow cost can be quantified
 Relationship Diagram
 Quantitative and Qualitative analysis is combined into a relationship
diagram
 Sample relationship diagram

Department SR PC PS IC XT AT
SR I O I O A
PC I X U U E
PS O X U E E
IC I U U U E
XT O U E U I
AT A E E E I
Absolutely necessary A
Assign some numerical values to A-X
Especially important E
ratings:
Large integer for A rating, 0 for U Important I
rating, large –ve integer for X rating Ordinary O
Unimportant U
Undesirable X
 Closeness Rating

Department Total closeness rating

SR 9+3+9+3+81 = 105
PC 9+0+1+1+27 = 38
PS 58
IC 39
XT 35
AT 165

Greedy Algorithm
Step 1 : AT has the highest rating, hence placed in the
SR XT
center
Step 2 : Next highest SR placed adjacent to or top of AT
Step 3 : Next up is PS placed adjacent to AT, V(AT,PS)=E PC AT PS
Step 4 : Next highest XT placed close to PS
Step 5 : Next is IC placed below AT
Step 6 : Next is PC may stay away from PS
IC