Production and Operations Management

Facility Layout
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 Meaning of facility layout
Facility layout is an arrangement of every
thing needed for production of goods or
delivery of services.
It can be Machines, computers, work centres,
departments, warehouse, manufacturing
cells, ..
The layout design generally depends on the
variety (goods or service) and the production
volumes.
 Meaning of facility layout………
Facility layout is a plan of an optimum
arrangement of facilities including
personnel, operating equipment, storage
space, material handling equipment and all
other supporting services along with the
design of best structure to contain all these
facilities.
 Why facility layout?
The main objective consists of organizing resources
and working areas in the most efficient way.
Specific objectives:
Streamline the flow of materials/products/people
through the facility
Facilitate the operation processes effectively.
Increase productivity
Minimize materials handling and cost.
 Effective utilization of resources (labour, equipment
and space including the cubic space)
 Design considerations
 Future expansion or change
 Flow/movement of people, materials, products, information.
 Materials handling equipment
 Space utilization.
 Shipping and receiving point
 Ease of communication and support
 Employee morale
 Reduce customer service time/cycle time
 Safety of workers
 Maintenance
 Principles of facility layout
Principles of layout design for maximum advantages:-
Principle of integration: A good layout is one that
integrates workers, materials, machines and supporting
services and others in order to get the optimum
utilization of resources and maximum effectiveness.
 Principle of cubic space utilization: The good layout
is one that utilize both horizontal and vertical space. It
is not only enough if only the floor space is utilized
optimally but the third dimension, i.e., the height is also
to be utilized effectively.
 Principles of facility layout…..
Principle of minimum distance: This principle is
concerned with the minimum travel of a man and
materials. The facilities should be arranged such that,
total distance travelled by man and materials are
minimum.
Principle of flow: A good layout is one that makes the
materials to move in forward direction towards the
completion stage, i.e., there should not be any backward
movement.
 Principles of facility layout…..
Principle of maximum flexibility: The good layout is
one that can be altered without much cost and time,
i.e., future requirements should be taken into account
while designing the present layout.
Principle of safety, security and satisfaction: A good
layout is one that gives due consideration to workers
safety and satisfaction and safeguards the facility and
machinery against fire, theft, etc.
Principle of minimum handling: A good layout is one
that reduces the material handling to the minimum.
 Need for layout re-design
Inefficient operations e.g. high cost, bottleneck.
Changes in the products specifications e.g. new
products introduced.
Too many accidents.
Changes in environmental or other legal requirement.
Changes in volume of output or mix of products.
Changes in methods, technology and equipment.
Morale problems
 Types of facility layout
Fixed position layout
Product stays and resources move to it.
Product oriented layout
Product moves from point to point to completion.
Process oriented layout (Functional Layout).
Machinery is placed according to what they
perform.
Cell Layout/Group layout
Hybrid Layout that tries to take advantage of
different layouts types.
 Facility and work design
Cellular/Group Layout
• Group layout is a combination of the product
layout and process layout.
• It tries to combine the advantages of product and
process layout
• Group technology is used in order to develop a
cellular layout
• Group technology, is a technique of classifying
parts into families so that efficient production can
be reached for each families of goods or services.
 Group layout: advantages
Effective machine operation and productivity.
Customer service decreased
 Work-in-progress and work movement
decreased.
Overall cost decreased.
 Group layout: limitations

This type of layout may not be feasible for all

situations, especially if the product mix is
completely dissimilar.
In that case we may not have meaningful cell
formation.
 Layout for a Service Business
Most of the concepts and techniques explained before
can be applied to any layout, including services.
Service Businesses have a more direct customer focus:
Sometimes, the customer is required at the facility for
the company to be able to perform the service.
Frequently, the layout is focused on the customer
satisfaction than on the operation itself.
Some of the objectives include comfortability during
the performance of the service, as well as making
attractive those areas in direct contact with the
customer.
 Layout for a service
Facility layout for an office:
The material that flows among departments and
workstations is basically information and people, be
done by:
Individual conversations face to face.
Individual conversations, telephone or computer…..
Mail and other physical documents.
Meetings and discussion groups.
The layout solution is dictated by workers and
physical movements.
 Layout for a service…….
Plant layout for a supermarket:
Objective: Maximize the net benefit per square of
shelves.
If sales are directly related to the exposition of
products to the customer, the objective will consist of
exposing as many products as possible to the
customers in the available space.
This has to take into account to leave enough space
for the movement among shelves, not making the
layout uncomfortable for the customer.
 Product layout design
In product layout, equipment or departments are
dedicated to a particular product line (i.e. one type of
product).
Assembly lines are a special case of product layout.
In a general sense, the term assembly line refers to
progressive assembly process linked by some
material-handling devices.
The line should always be balanced in order to
utilize all workers effectively.
 Assembly line balancing
 Assembly Line Balancing is a technique that assigns
tasks to different workstations, in such a way, that
the total processing time at each workstation is
balanced in order to minimize idle time.

 For large facilities with many tasks and work

centers, mathematical procedures are used although
they cannot guarantee 100% balancing.
 Assembly line balancing………
The problem is complicated by the relationships
among tasks imposed by product design and process
technologies.

This is called the precedence relationship, which

specifies the order in which tasks must be performed
in the assembly process.

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POM 5011 Operations Management
 Assembly line balancing steps
Specify the sequential relationships among tasks
using a precedence diagram.
Determine the required workstation cycle time C,
using the formula.
Determine the theoretical minimum number of
workstations (Nt) required to satisfy the workstation
cycle time constraint using the formula.
Select a primary rule by which tasks are to be
assigned to workstations.
Assembly line balancing………

Minimum number n
of workstations = ∑ Time for task i
i=1
Cycle time
 Assembly line balancing……
Assign tasks, once at a time, to the first workstation
until the sum of the task times is equal to the
workstation cycle time, or no other tasks are feasible
because of time or sequence restrictions. Repeat the
process for workstation 2, workstation 3, and so on
until all tasks are assigned.
 Evaluate the efficiency of the balance derived using
the formula
Question 1
Kilimanjaro furniture mart produces all types of office
furniture's. The “executive secretary” is a chair that has
been designed using ergonomics to provide comfort
during long work hours. The chairs sells for 273,000/=.
There are 580 minutes available during the day, and the
average daily demand has been 70 chairs. There are 7
tasks:
Task Performance time Precedence
(min)
A 5 -
B 8 -
C 9 A,B
D 10 C
E 3 D
F 5 E
G 6 F,E
Question 1 ……
• Draw a precedence diagram
• What is the cycle time for this operations?
• Establish the minimum number of workstations