Facilities Layout is the method of allocating machines & equipments, various production process and other necessary services involved in transformation process of products with the available space of the factory so as to achieve the greatest possible output of high quality at the lowest possible costs of manufacturing.
2. • Facilities Layout:
• Facilities Layout is the method of allocating machines & equipments, various
production process and other necessary services involved in transformation process of
products with the available space of the factory so as to achieve the greatest possible
output of high quality at the lowest possible costs of manufacturing.
• Facilities layout refers to the arrangement of machines, departments,
workstations, storage areas, aisles and common areas within and existing
or proposed facilities.
• Layout planning involves decisions about the physical arrangement of
economic activity centers within a facility.
• Before a manager can make decisions regarding physical arrangement,
four questions must be addressed:
• What number of centers should layout include?
• How much space and capacity does each center need?
• How should each center’s space be configured?
• Where should each center be located?
3. • A good layout results in comforts, convenience, efficiency, safety, compactness
and profits. On the other hand poor layout results in congestion, waste,
frustration & inefficiency. Development of a good layout depends on series of
decisions already taken on location, capacity, facility methods and materials
handling.
• Objectives of Facility Layout:
• Improvement in production process and methods.
• Ensure economy in products and materials handling.
• Maintain flexibility of arrangement and of operations.
• Minimize production delay.
• Ensure better control and supervision of production.
• Make economical use of floor space.
• Provide for employee convenience and comfort in doing the work.
• Provision to layout that permit meeting of competitive costs.
• Minimize the investments in equipments.
• Ensure optimum use of time.
• Avoidance of bottlenecks.
4. • Types of Layout:
• The choice of layout largely depends on process choice. There are five
basic types of layout.
• Process layout
• Product layout
• Hybrid layout
• Fixed position layout.
• Grouped technology layout.
• Process Layouts:
• A layout that groups workstations or departments according to the
functions or production process. For example, in a machine shop,
all drills will be located in one work center, lathes in another work
center & milling machines in still another work center. In a
departmental store, women’s clothes, men’s clothes, children’s
clothes, cosmetics & shoes are located in separated departments.
5. • A process layout is characteristic of intermittent operations, service shops,
job shops or batch productions, which serve different customers with
different needs. The volume of each customer’s order is low and the
sequence of operations required to complete a customer’s order can vary
considerably.
6.
7. • Advantages:
• Flexibility of equipment's and personnel.
• Permits maximum utilization of machines and work forces.
• Provide less duplication of tools, jigs, and fixtures.
• Employees supervision can be more specialized.
• Smaller amount of investments in equipment's.
• Diversity of tasks.
• Disadvantages:
• Lack of material handling efficiency.
• Productive time is lost in changing from one product or service to another.
• Production planning and control is more difficult.
• Materials handling tends to be costly. Back tracking and long movements
may occur in the handlings of materials.
• The time lags between job starts and end points are relatively long.
• Lower productivity.
• Cost of labor is higher; workers must have broader skills and must be paid
higher wages than assembly line workers.
8. • Product Layouts:
• Product layout, better known as assembly lines, arrange activities in a line
according to the sequence of operations that need to be performed to
assemble a particular product. Each product has its own ‘ Line’ specifically
designed to meet its requirements.
• The flow of work is orderly, and efficient, moving from one workstation to
another down the assembly line until a finished product comes off the end
of the line. It is a layout in which workstation or departments are arranged
in a liner path.
•
) Straight line:
Step - 1 Step – 2 Step – 3 Step - 4 Step - 5
Cut Mill Weld Grind Paint
9.
10. Shape: c) ‘L’ – Shape:
) Comb-Shape:
Sub Assembly A B C D
Main Assembly Line
11. • Advantages:
• Minimize materials handling.
• Reduce total processing time.
• Processing rates tend to be higher.
• Saves floor space.
• Reduces finished product inventories.
• Simplified production planning and control systems.
• Simplification of tasks, enabling un-skilled workers to learn quickly.
• Disadvantages:
• Lack of process flexibility. A change in product may require facility
modification.
• Lack of flexibility in timing. The product can not flow through the line
faster than the slowest task can be accomplished unless that task is
performed at multiple stations.
• Large investment in equipment's.
• Dependence of the whole on each part.
• Increase maintenance and down time problems.
• Workers may become bored by the endless repetition of the simple task.
12. Points of
distinction
Product layout Process Layout
1. Definition Workstations are arranged in a
liner path.
Workstations are arranged according
to the functions of production
process.
2. Product flow
pattern
Continuous Intermittent.
3. Product
characteristics
Standardized, made to stock. Varied, made to order.
4. Demand Stable Fluctuating.
5. Flexibility Inflexible. Flexible.
6. Floor space
used
Small floor space. Large floor space.
7. Investment in
equipments
High Low/Small
8. Inventory Low in process, high finished
goods.
High in process, low finished goods.
9. Human skill
required
Less efficient persons are
required.
More efficient persons are required
for rescheduling and resetting of
targets.
10. Duration of
production
Production cycle is small Production cycle is large.
11. Materials
handling costs
Materials handling costs is low as
fewer number of handling is done.
Materials handling costs is high as
large number of handling is done.
12. Maintenance Preventive system. Corrective system.
13. Volume of
production
Large volumes of products is
manufactured as it follows
continuous production systems.
Small volumes of products is
manufactured as it follows
intermittent production systems.
14. Layout
decisions
Line balancing. Machines location.
15. Control &
inspection
Complex. Easy
Comparison between Product and Process Layout:
13. • Hybrid Layouts:
• A layout in which some portions of the facility are arranged in a
‘process layout’ and others are arranged in a ‘product layout’. This
type of layout is the combination of product & process layout.
• There are three types of hybrid layout:
• Cellular Layouts group dissimilar machines into work centers (called
cells) that process families of parts with similar shapes or
processing requirements. It reduces transit time, setup time, and in-
process inventory.
• Flexible Manufacturing Systems are more fully automated versions
of cellular manufacturing where a computer controls the transmits
of parts from machine to machine and the start of work at each
machine. These systems are quite expensive but can produce
enormous variety of products.
• Mixed Model Assemble Lines process more than one product
model.
14. • Fixed Position/Static Layouts:
• A layout in which the product or project remains stationary, and workers,
materials, and equipment's are moved as needed. This is an arrangement
of layout in which the product is fixed in place; workers along with their
tools & equipment's come to the product to work on it. Fixed position
layouts are used in large construction projects (power-plant, dams),
shipbuilding, and production of large aircraft and space mission rockets.
• Advantages:
• It helps in job enlargements and upgrade the skill of operations.
• The workers identify themselves with the product in which they take the
interest and pride with the job.
• Greater flexibility can be achieved in this type of layout.
• The investment in equipment's & machinery used in this type of layout is
comparatively low.
15. • Group Technology Layouts:
• An option for achieving for product layout for low volume processes;
creates cells not limited to just one worker and has a unique way of
selecting work to be done by the cell.
• The GT method groups parts or products with similar characteristics into
families and sets aside groups of machines for their productions.
• Families may be based on size, shape, manufacturing requirements or
demand.
• Goals: The goal of GT method is to identify a set of products with similar
processing requirements and minimize machine change over or setup.
• In the above layout (GT), there are three families that account for a
majority of firm’s production.
• One family always requires two lathe machines followed by one
operational milling machine.
• The second family always requires milling operation followed grinding
operations.
• The third requires the use of lathe, milling machine and drilling.
16. • Steps in GT method:
• The application of Group technology involves two basic steps:
• Step-1: Determination of products or parts with similar characteristics.
• Step-2: Convert/ arrange the similar characteristics in to ‘family’ or ‘cell’.
• Advantages:
• GT reduces production-planning time for the job.
• GT reduces material handling, in process inventory because most of the families go
through a common sequence by workstations.
• Coordination of jobs is often easier, because many of the operation can be
followed visually.
• GT method also reduces the investment needed for holding pictures and other
tools and decreases set up time.
• It is also useful for companies that produce variety of parts in small batches.
• GT can be used to develop a hybrid between product and process layout.
17. • Factors to be considered in Facility Layout:
1. Nature of manufacturing system-
– Continuous production – Product layout would be appropriate.
– Intermittent production- Process layout would be appropriate,
• 2. Types of production process used -
– Production process using sophisticated technology - Product layout.
– Production process using general technology - Process Layout.
• 3. Types of product -
– Quality and standard product- Product layout.
– General product – Process / Hybrid layout.
• 4. Volume of production -
• Large volume of output – Product layout.
• Small / wide variety of output – Process layout.
• 5. Availability of floor space -
• Limited floor space – Product layout.
• Sufficient floor space – Process layout.
18. • 6. Nature and size of machines -
• Small / not complicated machines – Product layout
• Large complicated machines – Process Layout.
• 7. Nature of building -
• Strong vibration tolerance capacity – Product layout.
• Weak vibration tolerance capacity – Process layout.
• 8. Flexibility of system -
• Inflexible system – Product layout.
• Highly flexible system – Process layout.
• 9. Material handling facility -
• High necessity of materials handling – Product layout.
• Low necessity of materials handling – Process layout.
• 10. Facility of supervision –
• Less supervision – Product layout.
• High supervision – Process layout.
• 11. Location of the firm -
• Pollution free, upgraded, modern technology – Product layout.
• More vibration, heavy industry - Process layout.
19. • Features of a Good Layout:
• The layout can be planned in a number of ways, but a good layout should possess
some basic characteristics, namely-
• There should be sufficient space for workers and equipments to perform their
functions. This will ensure smooth and continuous flow of production process.
• A good layout must provide adequate safety and security to workers against
accident and injury. For example, provision for fire fighting equipments, first aid
boxes etc.
• A good layout should have sufficient gang-space for material, workers and semi-
finished goods. This leads to increase in efficiency.
• Arrangement of machines and equipment's should be such that minimum
materials handling is necessary for low cost processing.
• Stores for in-process inventories / materials should be provided at some
convenient place i.e. not far from the place of operations.
• Supervision, coordination and control of the activities should be effectively and
easily executed.
• There should have sufficient scope for making adjustments and modifications
whenever necessary i.e. the layout should be flexible.
20. Facility Layout Procedure:
Collect the detailed information about the product,
process & record the data systematically
Analyze the data using various techniques of analysis
Select the general flow pattern for materials
Design the individual workstation
Assemble the individual workstation into total layout
‘Coordinate plan’ with plan for handling materials
Complete the facility layout
Convert the facility layout into ‘floor plans’ that is to be
used by the plant engineer for installing the equipment
21. • Problems in Setting Effective Layout:
– Changes in production design and introduction of new product.
– Changes in volume of demand for a company’s product.
– Increasing frequency of accidents because of existing layout.
– Plant and machinery becomes out dated and is to be replaced by new one.
– Poor working environment affecting workers’ efficiency and productivity.
– Change in the location of the market.
• Symptoms of bad Layout:
• Long material flow lines and back tracking.
• Poor utilization of spaces.
• Congestion for movement of materials and men.
• Large amount of work-in-process.
• Long production cycle.
• Excessive handling of materials.
• More frequent accidents.
• Difficult to supervise and control.
• Production line bottlenecks.
• Spoilage of product during handling.
22. • When to Use Process, Product and Fixed Position Layout:
• Process layout is used when –
– Machinery is highly expensive and not easily moved.
– Variety of product is high and ‘make to order’ production.
– There is wide variation in cycle time of operations of products.
– There is small and intermittent demand for product.
• Product layout is used when –
• Production is ‘made to stock’ and mass production system.
• Limited variety, standardized product and low volume.
• Steady demand of product.
• Balanced operation and continuity of materials flow.
• Fixed Position layout is used when –
• The operations required only hand tools.
• Making only one or few pieces of product.
• The cost of moving materials is very high.
• The size of product is very high.
•
