HND in
Business Management
Operations Management in
Business
FACILITY
LAYOUT
CONTENTS
1) Introduction
2) Factors affecting Layout
3) Scope of Facility Layout
4) Types of Facility Layout
What is Facility Layout?
The layout facility is the physical
location of the various
departments/units of the facility within
the premises of the facility.
The departments may be located based
on the considerations such as:
Less walking distance
Logical sequence of the processing
requirements of the product
Importance of layout
Requires substantial investments of money and
effort
Involves long-term commitments
Has significant impact on cost and efficiency of
short-term operations
Inefficient operations
For Example:
High Cost
Bottlenecks
The introduction of new
products or services
Changes in the design
of products or services
Accidents
Safety hazards
The Need for Layout Design (Contd)
Changes in
environmental
or other legal
requirements
Changes in volume of
output or mix of
products
Morale problems
Changes in methods
and equipment
Factors affecting Layout
oMaterial
oProduct
oMachinery
oLabour
oLocation
oManagerial
Policies
oType of Industry
Scope of Facility Layout
Related to material
Less material handling and minimum
transportation cost
Less waiting time for in-process inventory .
Related
to work place
Safe working conditions from the point of ventilation,
lighting, etc.
Minimum movement of workers
Least chances of accidents, fire, etc.
Proper space for machines, worker, tools, etc.
Performance related objectives
Simpler plant maintenance
Increased productivity, better product quality,
and reduced cost
Least set-up cost and minimal change-over
Objective related to flexibility
Scope for future expansion
Types of Layouts
1) Process Layout
Suitable when product having standard
features is to be produced in large volumes.
The specialized machines and equipments
are arranged one after another in the order of
sequence required in the production process.
Conveyer
CAR
1
CAR
2
CAR
3
Principles
The distance between departments
should be as short as possible for
avoiding long distance movement of
materials.
The departments should be in
sequence of operations
The arrangements should be
convenient for inspection and
supervision.
Advantages of Process Layout:
Greater Flexibility
Better and more efficient supervision
possible through specialization
Capacity of different product line can be
expanded easily.
Better utilization of men and machine.
Overhead costs are relatively low
Disadvantages:
More
More
More
More
floor space
work in progress
distance travelled by the product
skilled labor is required
2) Product
It is appropriate for producing one standardized
Layout
product, usually in large volume. It is also called as
flow-shop layout or straight line layouts. The
machines are arranged according to the progressive
steps by which the product is made.
Example: chemical, paper, rubber, refineries,
cement industry.
A Flow Line for Production or Service
Flow Shop or Assembly Line Work
Flow
Raw
materials
or
customer
Materi
al
and/or
labor
Statio
n
1
Materi
al
and/or
labor
Station
2
Materi
al
and/or
labor
15
Station
3
Materi
al
and/or
labor
Station
4
Finish
ed
item
A U-Shaped Production Line
Principles
All the machine tools or other items of
equipments must be placed at the point
demanded by the sequence of operations
There should no points where one line
crossed another line.
Materials may be fed where they are
required for assembly but not necessarily
at one point.
All the operations including assembly,
testing packing must be included in the
line.
Advantages:
Mechanization of materials is possible
and material handling cost can be
reduced.
It requires less floor area.
It facilitates better production control.
Production bottlenecks are avoided.
Disadvantages:
Expansion of product line is difficult.
There is difficulty is supervising.
Breakdown of equipment disrupts the
production.
Comparison between Product and
Process Layout
3) Grouping Technology
Layout
Grouping technology layout or cellular manufacturing
layout is made for a single part family i.e parts with
common characteristics. In this layout dissimilar
machines are grouped into cells and each cell
functions like product layout.
Advantages
It reduces material
handling cost and
simplifies machine
changeovers.
It reduces in-process
inventory and
automate the
Disadvantages
Increased capital investment
Expanded training and scheduling of
workers
4) Fixed Position
Layout
When due to size,
shape and other
characteristics constraints, the products
cannot be moved, the machine and
operators move around the product.
Example: Construction of a building,
assemble of an aircraft or ship.
Advantage:
Less investment is required in this
layout and less transport cost as
bulky machines are not moved.
Fixed Position Layout
Disadvantages
Production period being very long,
capital investment is very high.
Very large space is required for
storage of material and equipment
near the product
Possibility of confusion and conflicts
among different workgroups. Why?
Hybrid Layout/ Combination
Combination of pure types of Layouts
Example : Process, Product and Fixed
Layouts
Hospital : Fixed and Process layout
Importance
Smooth and effective functioning
Effective use of available area
Avoidance of bottlenecks
Better supervision
Improved employee morale
Improved employee morale
Morale will be increased by giving
Better working condition
Better employee facilities
Reduced number of accidents
Increased earnings
Service Layouts
Warehouse and storage layouts
Issue: Frequency of orders
Retail layouts
Issue: Traffic patterns and traffic
flows
Office layouts
Issue: Information transfer, openness
Example : Hospital
Design Product Layouts: Line Balancing
Line balancing is the process of assigning tasks to workstations
in such a way that the workstations have approximately the same
processing time requirements. This results in the minimized idle time
along the line and high utilization of labor and equipment.
4 tasks
2 tasks
Worker 1
Worker 2
Each task takes 1 minutes, how to balance?
Cycle time is the maximum time allowed at each workstation
to complete its set of tasks on a single unit
What is the cycle time for the system above?
28
Parallel Workstations
1 min.
30/hr.
1 min.
30/hr.
2 min.
30/hr.
1 min.
30/hr.
Bottleneck
30/hr.
1 min.
60/hr.
2 min.
30/hr.
1 min.
1 min.
30/hr.
2 min.
Parallel Workstations
29
30/hr.
60/hr.
