Facility Layout

Prof Harish Rao

Facility layout

 Planning for location of all resources (machines, employee workstations,

storage areas, etc.) within the facility

 Develop an effective and efficient layout that will meet the firm’s
competitive requirements
Layout Design Considerations

 Higher utilization of space, equipment, and people

 Improved flow of information, materials, or people
 Improved employee morale and safer working conditions
 Improved customer/client interaction
 Flexibility
Good layout design includes

 Material handling equipment

 Capacity and space requirements
 Environment and aesthetics
 Flows of information
 Cost of moving between various work areas
Types of Layout

 Process-oriented layout
 Product-oriented layout
 Work-cell layout
 Fixed-position layout
Process Oriented Layout

 Variety of custom products in relatively small batches

 Like machines and equipment are grouped together

 Flexible and capable of handling a wide variety of products or services
 Scheduling can be difficult and setup, material handling, and labor costs can
be high
Process Oriented Layout
Process Oriented Layout

 Arrange work centers so as to minimize the costs of material handling

 Basic cost elements are
 Number of loads (or people) moving between centers
 Distance loads (or people) move between centers

n n
Minimize cost =å å X ijCij
i=1 j=1
 where n = total number of work centers or departments
i, j = individual departments

Xij = number of loads moved from department i to department j

Cij= cost to move a load between department i and department j
Example

 Arrange six departments in a factory to minimize the material handling costs.

Each department is 20 x 20 feet and the building is 60 feet long and 40 feet
wide.

 Construct a “from-to matrix”

 Determine the space requirements
 Develop an initial schematic diagram
 Determine the cost of this layout
 Try to improve the layout
 Prepare a detailed plan
Example

Number of loads per week

Department Assembly Painting Machine Receiving Shipping Testing
(1) (2) Shop (3) (4) (5) (6)

Assembly (1) 50 100 0 0 20

Painting (2) 30 50 10 0
Machine Shop (3) 20 0 100
Receiving (4) 50 0
Shipping (5) 0
Testing (6)
Example
Area A Area B Area C

Assembly Painting Machine Shop

Department Department Department
(1) (2) (3)

40’

Receiving Shipping Testing

Department Department Department
(4) (5) (6)

Area D Area E Area F

60’
Example
Interdepartmental Flow Graph

100

Assembly 50 Painting 30 Machine

(1) (2) Shop (3)
20 20
10
50 100

Receiving Shipping Testing

(4) (5) (6)
50
Example
n n
Cost =å å X ijCij
i=1 j=1

Cost = $50 + $200 + $40

(1 and 2) (1 and 3) (1 and 6)
+ $30 + $50 + $10
(2 and 3) (2 and 4) (2 and 5)
+ $40 + $100 + $50
(3 and 4) (3 and 6) (4 and 5)
= $570
Software for layout
 Graphical approach only works for small problems
 Computer programs are available to solve bigger problems
 CRAFT
 ALDEP
 CORELAP
 Factory Flow
 Proplanner
Work Cells

 Reorganizes people and machines into groups to focus on single products or

product groups
 Group technology identifies products that have similar characteristics for
particular cells
 Volume must justify cells
 Cells can be reconfigured as designs or volume changes
Advantages of Work Cells

 Reduced work-in-process inventory

 Less floor space required
 Reduced raw material and finished goods inventories
 Reduced direct labor cost
 Heightened sense of employee participation
 Increased equipment and machinery utilization
 Reduced investment in machinery and equipment
Requirements for work cells

 Identification of families of products

 A high level of training, flexibility and empowerment of employees
 Being self-contained, with its own equipment and resources
Product oriented layouts

 Low customization, high volume products

 Workers perform narrow range of activities
 Stable product demand
 Stable raw material supply with uniform quality
Product Oriented Layouts

 Advantages
 Low variable cost per unit
 Low material handling costs
 Reduced work-in-process inventories
 Easier training and supervision
 Rapid throughput
 Disadvantages
 High volume is required
 Work stoppage at any point ties up the whole operation
 Lack of flexibility in product or production rates
Line balancing

 Longest Task Time heuristic

 Cycle time limited by the task taking the largest time.
 Cycle time reduction is possible only by adding lines.
 Incremental Utilization Heuristic
 Tasks with times greater than the desired cycle time are managed by having
multiple workstations at each workcenter.
 Adds tasks to a workstation in order of task precedence until utilization is 100% or
is observed to fall
Example
Operations Operation Time Immediate Predecessor
(minutes)

A 6 -
A mobile manufacturing firm plans to B 8 -
assemble its new line of phones via an C 3 A
assembly line. The adjacent table D 10 A
gives the details of the operations that
E 4 B
need to be performed on the assembly
F 8 C
line, the operations time and the
G 7 D,E
precedence relationship.
H 6 B

Target production is 400 units per day (8 I 2 F

hours working) J 6 I

K 3 G

L 7 G

M 6 H,L

N 4 J,K,M
Longest Task Time Heuristic
 Since work cannot be shared between two stations, the minimum cycle time of the
assembly line cannot go below 10 seconds.

 Maximum Cycle time: This would be the case when all the work is loaded on one
station. So, maximum cycle time would be the sum of all task times, i.e., 80 seconds

 Designing an assembly line with a cycle time of say, 15 seconds.

 Each station can have work up to a maximum of 15 seconds
 Predecessor relationship must, of course, be maintained

 General rules for longest task time heuristic

 Longest processing time first
 Ties broken by Earlier workstation first.
Assembly Line Design
Station Set of tasks Task Time used Time left Station
available chosen Time

Cycle time of the designed assembly line is

1 A, B B 8 7
14 14 seconds. Number of stations is 6.
A, E, H A 6 1

2 C, D, E, H D 10 5 Working time of the stations in the

14 assembly line = 80 seconds
C, E E 4 1

3 C, G, H G 7 8 Total available time with the stations in the

14 assembly line = 15 x 6 = 90 seconds
C, H, K, L L 7 1

4 C, H, K H 6 9 Efficiency of the assembly line = 80/90 =

C, K, M M 6 3 15 88.88%
C, K C 3 0
Can you design another version of the
5 F, K F 8 7 assembly line with a cycle time of 10
I, K K 3 4 13
seconds? How many stations are needed?
What is the efficiency of the new assembly
I I 2 2 line?
6 J J 6 9
10
N N 4 5
Fixed Position Layout

 Product remains in one place

 Workers and equipment come to site
 Complicating factors
 Limited space at site
 Different materials required at different stages of the project
 Volume of materials needed is dynamic
Other types of Layout
 Hybrid Layout
 Aircraft assembly – Fixed layout + Assembly Line
 Office Layout
 Positions workers, their equipment, and spaces/offices to provide for movement of
information
 Locate workers requiring frequent contact close to one another
 Retail Layout
 Allocates shelf space and responds to customer behavior
 Expose customer to high-margin items
 Warehouse Layout
 Addresses trade-offs between space and material handling
 Balance low-cost storage with low-cost material handling
The End