Facility/Plant Layout

Plant Layout is most effective arrangement of

machines, processing equipment and service
departments to have the best co-ordination &
efficiency of man, machine and material in a plant .
 For a factory which is already in operation what is
Facility layout ?
Factors affecting Layout
 Types of industries
 Types of Production system
 Job shop production
 Type of product
 Volume of production
Types of industries
 Synthetic process based
Eg: Limestone + clay  Cement
 Analytic process based

Eg : Crude oil petroleum products

 Conditioning process based

Eg :Jute products, milk products

 Extractive process based

Eg : Bauxite  Al ,
Sugarcane juice Jaggery, sugar
Types of production system
 Continuous production
 Std., high volume, capital intensive Pdts.
 Pdts made to store in inventory
 Continuous product flow
 Leaf springs

 Job shop production

 Made to order, low volume, labor-intense Pdts.
 Interrupted pdt flow
 Space aircrafts, space vehicles.
Types of production system
 Batch Production
medium volume of same type of item or pdt
 May be produced once or on regular interval

 Generally Plant capacity > demand

 General purpose machine but having production

rate
 Industrial equipt, furniture , plastic molding.

 Type of pdt.

Product is heavy or light, large or small, liquid or

solid
Types of Layout
 Fixed position Layout
 Major part of pdt remains in fixed space
 Limited space
 Different material at different stages
 Volume required is huge
 Ship building industry
Types of Layout
 Process or Function Layout
 Low volume , high variety prodn
 All machines/eqpts of same type are grouped in
one section or area
 All drilling machines, etc.
 Different sequence of operations
 Eg : patients  Radiology, nursing beds, etc.

 Product Layout
 Flow of material unidirectionally
 Backtracking avoided
 Automobiles, refrigerators, sugar , steel, cement
etc.
Types of Layout
 Retail Layout
 Many products are exposed to customer
 Dairy pdts on oneside of supermkt &backery pdts on another.
 Objective profitability maximization
 Slotting manufactures have to pay fees for positioning
 Services -> Ambient conditions like lightning, sound, smell,
temperature.
 Spatial layout & functionality

 Warehousing & Storage layout

 Optimise handling cost & cost of warehouse space

 .
Combination Layout
 Process + Product Layout
 Office Layout
 Information more important
 Technology – cellular phones, space utilisation,
Internet, laptop computers
 Virtual companies require few employee
 Cross docking
 Avoid placing of materials, supplies in storage by
processing them as received

 SLP
 Collect Data abt Current & forecasted prodn units
 PQRST
 Product, Supporting activities, Route,
 Supporting activites, Timing
 A Travel Chart is a simple table that is useful where
there are multiple (and possibly irregular) movement
between places. It is a variation on the Check Sheet,
indicating movements from and to any combination of a
given set of locations.
 Gant Charts (Sequencing
Technique)

 How each machine /work centre is planned for different job

orders
 Scheduled start & finish times
 Word document
LOB (Sequencing Technique)
LOB
 Compare scheduled v/s Actual Units
with period (Units – Y, Time – X)
 Find deviation , take corrective action

 If possible take preventive measures

 Forecast future performance

Johnson’s Rule

 Maiden Charm(Un) ltd beauty Pdts, go through two

operations: Preparation & Finishing at the respective
two places& in that order. The operation times at
these work- centres are given below:
 How should the above items be sequenced so that
the total completion time is minimized ?
Beauty Preparation Finishing Hrs
Pdts\hrs hrs

Baby Blue 1 3

Virgin White 4 2

Shy Pink 5 4

Daring Purple 2 5
Use of computers for Scheduling
 Computers /software are required
for Production Analysis
 PPC software, SAP/ERP