1

Why the From-To Chart has always limited Facilities Planners to a Single Layout Choice

Shahrukh A. Irani and Heng Huang

Department of Industrial, Welding and Systems Engineering
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43210

Rajan Batta
Department of Industrial Engineering
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260

ABSTRACT

The From-To Chart is the primary form of quantitative input data that is used for facility
layout. However, its simple weighted directed graph structure is suitable for the design of
a single classic type of layout for a facility – the Functional (or Process) Layout. This is
because the From-To Chart aggregates all routings connecting any pair of departments
into a single flow edge between them. This flow aggregation does not influence the
design of a Functional Layout since a department does not have to be split and duplicated
at multiple locations. But, if it is desired to design a layout that necessitates department
splitting, for example, a Cellular Layout, then the From-To Chart is not the correct form
of input data. This is because its structure is unable to associate the groups of operation
sequences that would have to associated with every copy of a department or machine.
This paper traces the history of the use of the From-To Chart instead of the operation
sequences from which it is generated as input data. It proposes a new direction in facility
layout research: The use of operation sequences instead of the From-To chart as the
input data for the design of non-traditional facility layouts that require machine
duplication.

1. INTRODUCTION

Facility Layout determines how to arrange, locate and distribute the equipment and
support services in a manufacturing facility to achieve minimization of overall
production time, maximization of operational and arrangement flexibility, maximization
of turnover of work-in-process and maximization of factory output in conformance with
production schedules [TOMP96]. Typical symptoms of an inefficient facility layout are
large travel distances between consecutive operations necessitating significant forklift
activity, high work-in-process buffers at several workcenters, large order throughput
times, poor order tracking capability, delayed communications between workcenters and
significant queuing and material handling delays experienced by a large proportion of
orders. The primary reason for poor material flows in the facility is usually the choice of
layout for the facility.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. DMI-
9796034 and DMI-9734815
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2. TRADITIONAL CHOICES FOR FACILITY LAYOUTS

Traditionally, three types of layout are considered appropriate for a manufacturing

facility – Product (or Line), Group (or Cellular) and Functional (or Process) – as shown
in Figure 1. In a Functional Layout, machines with identical manufacturing capabilities
are grouped into a single department. The different process-specialized departments,
such as Turning, Grinding, Milling, Broaching and Heat Treatment, are located relative
to each other in order to minimize the total travel distance for the parts (or products)
produced in the facility. In contrast, in a Cellular Layout, each department in the
Functional Layout could be split and the machines in it allocated among two or more
“cells”. Each cell is a group of machines from different process departments co-located
in a dedicated section of the shopfloor. However, each cell is capable of producing some
subset (also referred to as a Part Family) of the complete product mix produced in the
facility. In essence, a Functional Layout has a process focus whereas a Cellular Layout
has a part (or product) family focus. The Product Layout combines the properties of the
Functional and Cellular Layouts. All of the machines and support services required to
make a single part or product (or a family of variants of a product) are located in a single
department [WOLS80]. The production capacity of each type of equipment in a Product
Layout is balanced against that of the others as nearly as practicable, by using as many
units of each type as are required to obtain the desired capacity to satisfy demand
volumes [IRES52].

L L M D

L M M D
Product Layout
L G G D

M G G D

Cellular Layout L M L D L D M D

L D M M G G G G

L L M M G G D D
Functional Layout
L L M M G G D D

Key: L = lathe M = mill G = grinder D = dril

Figure 1 Traditional Types of Manufacturing Facility Layouts

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3. DEPARTMENT SPLITTING AND MACHINE DUPLICATION

The division and distribution of machines in a process department into several cells when
converting from a Functional Layout into a Cellular Layout is referred to as the Machine
Duplication problem in the literature on Cellular Manufacturing Systems. From a
historical perspective, as early as 1952 Ireson [IRES52] stated that “… the combination
method of departmentalization is accomplished by a Functional Layout of machines and
equipment in long, narrow departments, with the products flowing at right angles to the
departments …. (but) … there must be sufficient similarity in the products and the steps
of production so that such a plan can be followed without excessive backtracking of parts
as they are processed through the several departments”. Hence, depending on the part
mix and production volumes, a facility layout may need to adopt one or more options for
machine duplication. The pioneering paper on Production Flow Analysis by Burbidge
[BURB63] was the first to specifically discuss machine duplication to divide and
distribute the departments in a Functional Layout in order to design a Cellular Layout. As
regards machine duplication to create independent cells, Prof. Burbidge wrote “…
compare the plant requirements for the different packs (or part families) and reintegrate
to produce the desired number of groups, with the minimum number of work center
duplication between groups”. Burbidge converted the part routings into a 0-1 machine-
part matrix and used manual sorting of this matrix to identify the part families and
machine groups to constitute the various cells. McAuley’s Single Linkage Cluster
Analysis [MCAU72] method and King’s Rank Order Clustering algorithm [KING80]
were the first computer methods to automate this manual process using a 0-1 machine-
part matrix representation of the original operation sequences. However, the machine-
part matrix representation of the operation sequences has several drawbacks: (a) it loses
the flow directions and (b) is does not have the structure of an adjacency or planar graph
that could be used for layout design. Therefore, the cluster analysis and matrix
decomposition methods for cell formation are not directly usable for design of a facility
layout with machine duplication.

The From-To Chart is the standard input to algorithms for the design of Functional
Layouts - Quadratic Assignment Problem [ARMO63], Maximum Weight Planar Graph
Embedding [SEPP70], Cut Tree [MONT89], Space Filling Curve [BOZE94].
Unfortunately, these algorithms are unsuitable for the design of facility layouts with
machine duplication (or department decentralization) since the routes of the individual
products are lost due to aggregation in the From-To Chart. In contrast, the algorithms for
design of Cellular Layouts address the machine duplication problem because they use the
operation sequences as input data. Vakharia and Wemmerlov [VAKH90] present a cell
formation method based on analysis of the operation sequences of the parts. Their
method duplicates machines to create a system of flowline-type cells with minimum
intercell flows. Ho et al [HO93] present a layout design technique that exploits the
similarity of product assembly sequences in a product family to design a network-type
layout for a multi-products flowline. Moodie et al [MOOD94] discuss the case of design
of a network of manufacturing cells using product sequence similarity analyis where all
cells have a flowline layout. The literature review revealed an interesting dichotomy in
layout design methods – layout planners have either used the From-To Chart to design
 4

Functional Layouts or the operation sequences to design Cellular Layouts. But, the
operation sequences have never been used to design layouts that distribute machines
from the same department at multiple locations in the facility i.e. layouts that do not
have a rigid part family or process focus as a basis for machine grouping and location.

4. NON-TRADITIONAL CHOICES FOR FACILITY LAYOUTS

In an extension to the traditional Functional Layout, Montreuil and Lefrancois

[MONT96] describe two novel layouts - Fractal Layouts and Holographic Layouts - that
distribute identical machines at multiple locations on the factory floor. Their idea is
similar to that of giving flexibility to a jobshop layout by distributing identical machines
at several non-adjacent locations on the shopfloor [WEBS80]. Fractal layouts are further
discussed by Askin et al [ASKI96] and Venkatadri et al [VENK97].

Based on Figure 1.1 in Gallagher and Knight [GALL73], Figure 2(c) demonstrates the
concept of a Virtual Cellular Layout [IRAN90] that combines the properties of the
Functional Layout of Figure 2(a) and the Cellular (Group Technology Flowline) Layout
of Figure 2(b). The Virtual Cellular Layout is one of several Hybrid Cellular Layouts
presented in Shukla [SHUK95] that are intermediate between the Functional Layout and
Cellular Layout for a jobshop. The hybrid layouts seek to preserve the part family and
cellular focus of the original set of cells designed to replace the existing Functional
Layout in a jobshop. This is achieved by modifying (a) the machine-part compositions
of the cells or (b) the shapes of the cells or (c) the orientations of the cells or (d) the
locations of the cells. The objective is to position cells containing machines from the
same department in order to allow regrouping of those machines into a “virtual” process
department, as in the original Functional Layout.
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Part 2

Part 1 T1 T2 CG1 CG2

Part 3
T3 SG1 SG2

M1 M2 D1 D2

M3 M4 D3

Part 4

Figure 2(a) Functional Layout [GALL73]

T1 T2 T3

M1 M2 M3 M4

D1 D2 CG2 D3

SG1 CG1 SG2

Figure 2(b) Cellular Layout [GALL73]

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T1 T2 T3
T2 T3

M4 M1 M2 M3 After the product

M2 M3
routings are revised

D3 D1 D2 CG1
D2 CG1

SG1 SG2 CG2

SG2 CG2

Figure 2(c) Virtual Cellular Layout [IRAN90]

Figure 3 presents a classification of traditional and non-traditional facility layouts using

a product vs. process focus as the basis for grouping and placement of machines in a
manufacturing facility layout.
 Multi-Product Flowlines

 Hybrid (Cellular) Layouts

 Fractal Layouts

 Modular Layouts

 Virtual Cells

 Holonic Layouts
 Cellular Layout based on Part Families

 Distributed (or Flexible or Robust) Layouts

 Flowline Layout for each Product

 Functional Layout

-------------
-

Increasing product focus Increasing process focus Next Generation Facility

Layouts
 7

Figure 3 Classification of Traditional and Non-Traditional Layouts

5. FUNDAMENTAL LIMITATIONS OF THE FROM-TO CHART

In a typical facility layout project, initial (raw) data consisting of (a) the departments in
the facility and the approximate area of each department, as shown in Table 1, and (b)
the operation sequences and batch quantities for the parts (or products) being produced in
that facility, as shown in Table 2, is obtained. This data in Tables 1 and 2 is transformed
into a From-To Chart, as shown in Table 3. This chart captures the cumulative volume
of material flow between any pair of departments. The From-To Chart is input to a
standard commercial facility layout package1 to generate the Functional Layout in Figure
4. In the ideal case, if the operation sequence of each part in the sample of parts used to
generate the From-To Chart is decomposed into moves between consecutive pairs of
departments, then each of these moves should be between two adjacent departments.
However, in the Functional Layout designed using a From-To Chart, several flows will
occur between non-adjacent departments i.e. departments that do not share a common
boundary. If it were possible to identify the particular parts whose operation sequences
contain the non-adjacent flows, then they could be eliminated, simplified or reduced
using any of several material flow simplification strategies. Unfortunately, in the process
of aggregating all the operation sequences into a From-To Chart, the routings of the
individual parts are lost. Thereby, if a department is split and machines from it placed at
several locations on the shopfloor, then the analyst cannot determine which products will
get routed to each “department copy”. This difficulty was experienced by Holstein and
Berry [HOLS70] when they attempted to identify the few major paths in a jobshop along
which large volumes of flow occur by taking successive powers of the transition matrix
generated from the From-To Chart. This method failed because (a) it could not account
for backtracking and (b) it generated meaningless routings. Their alternative method,
which enumerated paths directly from routing data, did not suffer the difficulties of the
earlier statistical pathfinding method.

The above limitation of the From-To Chart was recognized as early as 1955. In response
to Wayland P. Smith’s article [SMIT55], Paul E. Weiss [WEIS55] wrote in the Readers
Comments section of the Journal of Industrial Engineering “…. We found that 30% of
our material handling was to a central inspection station and it became obvious that
decentralization was worthwhile. One can tell from the chart data how many parts will
go to each new inspection station but one does not know where parts will go after this
station without compiling new data …”. In his reply, Smith [WEIS55] concurred that
“… it is certainly frustrating, as well as time-consuming, to search through the original
data all over again when this is necessary because the data in each block is mixed, and it
is impossible to tell where the parts will go after they reach the newly established station.
It is also impossible to be sure which of the newly established stations should receive the
parts since the station that they would be sent to under the new system depends not only
on where they come from but, also, where they will go next …”. Smith did not favor
1
Commercial packages such as FACTORYFLOW, STORM, SPIRAL, PLANOPT and BLOCPLAN can
be used to generate Process Layouts.
 8

“running through a large number of routings” by hand to implement decentralization

which, in essence, is core to the idea of the machine duplication observed in the non-
traditional layouts shown in Figure 3.

Table 1 Departments in the Jobshop

Department Symbol Description of the Department Area*

F Foundry 3
B Deburring 3
M Milling 2
D Drilling 2
G Grinding 1
A Assembly 3
I Inspection 2
R Robot Welding 1
P Plating 2
S Packaging 3
* Expressed in Number of Grid Squares

Table 2 Operation Sequences and Batch Quantities of Parts produced in the Jobshop

Part # Operation Sequence Batch

Quantity
1 FBDGIS 6
2 FBMIGPIS 8
3 FBMIPIS 7
4 FBDGPIS 7
5 FBDMPIS 7
6 FBMRPAIS 3
7 FRPAIS 3
8 FBMRPAIS 3
9 FBMAIS 3
10 FBDMAIS 7
11 FBDAIS 4
12 FBDAIS 3
13 FBDSAIS 4

Table 3 From-To Chart for Facility Layout Design for the Jobshop

F B D G I S M P R A
F - 62 3
B - 38 24
D - 13 4 14 7
G - 6 15
I 8 - 65 7
S - 4
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M 15 - 7 6 10
P 29 - 9
R 9 -
A 30 -

F R
A
B D M P
G
I
S

Figure 4 Functional Layout generated using Tables 1 and 2

6. HISTORY OF THE FROM-TO CHART

Ireson ([IRES52], p. 70-71) does not specifically generate a From-To Chart when
utilizing the routings of a sample of parts to generate an “arrangement of departments”,
essentially a Functional Layout, to minimize material handling in a 10-department
facility. However, he did use the standard principles for facility layout in his manual
analysis:
 P-Q analysis to select the sample of products that contribute to 75-90% of the total
material flows
 Minimization of travel distances and provision of direct routes for material handling
for the major products (and longer hauls for the minor products)
In addition, he refers to a “…comparison of the process charts for the major products to
seek similarities in the sequence of operations to give some indication of the best
arrangement of the departments”.

To understand the origin of the total reliance in facility layout on the From-To Chart
instead of the original operation sequences (or routings) from which it is generated, a
review of the earliest papers on From-To Charts (also referred to as Cross Charts or
From-To Charts) – [CAME52], [FARR55], [SMIT55], [BUFF55], [LUND55],
[LLEW58], [BOLZ58], [CAME58], [REIS60], [SCHN57], [SCHN60], [SMIT55],
[WEIS55] - was conducted. In addition, the earliest textbooks on Facility Layout –
[APPL50], [IMME50], [MUTH55], [REED61], [MOOR62] – were studied. The
following conclusions were made about why the From-To Chart, and not the original
operation sequences from which it is generated, has always been used for facility layout:
 The operation sequences for all the products were initially entered into a Multi-
Product Process Chart [MUTH55, p. 183, Figure 14.6]. However, no analyses were
 10

done using this chart. Instead, the routings were consistently aggregated into a From-
To Chart and a Flow Diagram for visual/manual layout design [FARR55].
 The From-To Chart was used “to reduce a large quantity of data into a very compact
form so that it may be more readily analyzed” [SMIT55]. Pareto Analysis and
sampling techniques were recommended to select a subset of parts “where the parts
are too numerous” [BUFF55]. Schnieder suggested that the reason for using a From-
To Chart was that “much layout work is being performed by people who do not have
the training nor the background to understand and apply higher mathematics”
[SCHN60].
 Smith felt that it was a suitable charting technique for the design of Process
(Functional) and Line (Product) layouts by indicating how to minimize backtracking
by changing the operation sequences of the offending parts [SMIT55]. Although,
Lundy did not consider direction of movement important in the design of a Process
(or Functional) Layout [LUND55].
 Buffa did suggest that the Block Diagram could be used to identify “…. combinations
of work centers for practical departmentalization2 …. based upon workcenter sizes
and similarity of work performed …” [BUFF55].
 Cameron [CAME60] does report an analysis to divide manufacturing facilities
between buildings to eliminate inter-building transport and increase “percent of
product self-sufficiency” of each building. In essence, each building could be viewed
as a Focused Factory or Product Cell.
Based on this study of the history of the From-To Chart, it was concluded that the use of
the From-To Chart as the primary input for facility layout was driven by two factors in
the 1950’s:
1. The need to keep the problem size small to facilitate manual analysis (the number of
departments in a large facility could range from 20-50 whereas the number of unique
product routings could range from 250-5000+), and,
2. The overwhelming preference for the Functional Layout in industry at that time.
It is an interesting coincidence that, in 1963, Burbidge [BURB63] proposed his ideas for
machine duplication to design a Cellular Layout whereas Armour and Buffa [ARMO63]
proposed their CRAFT program to design a Functional Layout.

8. CONCLUSION

This paper discussed the history of the use of the From-To Chart for facility layout.
Since this chart is a simple graph and not a hypergraph, it loses the identity of the
operation sequences of individual products being produced in the facility. Without any
knowledge of the specific routings, it is impossible to design a Cellular Layout or any
other modern layout which requires a department to be split and its machines duplicated
over multiple locations in the facility. Hence, to design layouts which seek to duplicate a
department or machine at multiple locations, it is necessary to work with the operation
sequences that were used to generate the From-To Chart. 3

2
This is one of the earliest references to the idea of manufacturing cells in the literature.
3
The interested reader is referred to the first author’s web pages for further information (http://www-
iwse.eng.ohio-state.edu/~FMPF/irani.html).
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