Sawhill Athletic Club (A)

1. Develop an ld score for the current layout. What problems can you identify with the current layout?

Please see the table following question 2 for ld score calculations for the current layout. The ld score
for the current layout is 1202. The department combinations with relatively high trips also were
located far from each other. For example, there are a large number of trips between the lobby and the
day care center and between the lobby and the showers, yet these combinations had large distances
between them.

2. Use trial and error to come up with a better layout that lowers the ld score. Explain the departments
you thought needed to be in close proximity to one another.

I focused on first locating departments close together that had the highest number of trips between
them. To do so, I sorted the department combinations based on the number of trips. The first few on
the list all had G as one of the departments, so I decided to locate G in the center of the facility. For
those departments that had the most trips to and from G, I either located them directly above or below
G or to the right or left of G since these are the locations that have the shortest distance from G.
Since the ld score changed from 1148 to 813, we significantly improved the layout.
Current Layout Proposed layout
Number of
Depts. Trips Distance ld Distance ld
A and B 15 1 15 2 30
A and C 34 2 68 1 34
A and D 32 3 96 1 32
A and E 14 1 14 2 28
A and F 54 4 216 2 108
A and G 76 3 228 1 76
B and C 2 1 2 1 2
B and D 2 1 2 3 6
B and E 34 2 68 2 68
B and G 72 2 144 1 72
C and D 26 1 26 2 52
C and F 47 2 94 3 141
C and G 3 1 3 2 6
D and E 9 2 18 1 9
D and F 1 1 1 3 3
D and G 4 2 8 2 8
E and F 7 2 14 1 7
E and G 74 1 74 1 74
F and G 57 1 57 1 57
1148 813

1
 Proposed Layout

Pro Shop Lobby Food Court

D A C
Showers/Lockers
Exercise and Weight G Raquetball Courts
Room E Day Care Facility B
F

3. Imagine an athletic facility such as Sawhill. What strategies would you suggest for creating an open
environment?

We should remove as many walls as possible. Wherever it is not possible to do so or does not make
sense, we would convert them into dividers that are about waist high and use columns for support
structures. We could also use glass walls wherever possible to make it seem more open.

Sawhill Athletic Club (B)

1. What is the reason Sawhill is regularly running out of towels?

Sawhill faces an hourly demand for towels of 60. The washer requires 20 minutes to wash a batch of
20 towels and it can do 3 batches per hour, therefore its hourly output matches the demand of 60
towels per hour. The dryer also uses a batch size of 20. However, it requires 60 minutes to dry a load.
Therefore, its output rate is 20 towels per hour which is a bottleneck operation in the drying process
with an hourly output rate below the hourly demand rate. Both the washing machine and dryer use a
batch size of 20. The folding rate is also 60 towels per hour. Even though two of the operations can
meet the demand, the bottleneck operation limits throughput to 20 towels per hour.

2. What is the cycle time of the current washing-drying-folding process? What should the cycle time be
in order to meet towel demand.

The cycle time is determined by the longest time required to complete a batch. The washer and dryer
use batches of 20. The dryer requires an hour to complete this batch. Therefore the cycle time is one
hour per batch of 20. In order to meet demand, the cycle time or batch size of the bottleneck operation
needs to be improved. With a batch size of 20, the dryer would need to have a cycle time of 20
minutes.

4. Will purchasing an additional washer and dryer solve the problem? How will the cycle time change
with an additional washer and dryer? Suggest a solution to the problem.

No, purchasing an additional washer and dryer will not solve the problem. Two dryers operating in
parallel raise the batch size to 40 towels. They will still have a cycle time of one hour for a batch of
40 towels. This rate of output is still below the needed 60 per hour. To solve the problem, Sawhill
should buy two more dryers and no new washers. This raises the batch size of drying to 60 per hour
with a cycle time of one hour. Assuming the staff can load the washers and dryers and still fold 60
towels an hour, this solves the problem.