CHAPTER

Facility Layout 10

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 Learning Objectives

• Define facility layout

• Describe different types of layouts
• Compare process & product layouts
• Describe the design process for different
layouts
• Explain the advantages of hybrid layouts
• Define group technology & manufacturing
cells
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 Facility Layout

• Layout planning is determining the best

physical arrangement of resources within a
facility
• Process layouts:
– Group similar resources together
– Emphasis is on flexibility
• Product layouts:
– Designed to produce a specific product efficiently
– Emphasis is on efficiency

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 Process Layouts

• General purpose & flexible resources

• Lower capital intensity & automation
• Higher labor intensity
• Processing rates are slower
• Material handling costs are higher
• Scheduling resources & work flow is
more complex
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 Product Layouts

• Specialized equipment
• High capital intensity & wide use of
automation
• Processing rates are faster
• Material handling costs are lower
• Less space required for inventories
• Less volume or design flexibility
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 Hybrid Layouts

• Combine elements of both product &

process layouts
– Maintain some of the efficiencies of
product layouts
– Maintain some of the flexibility of process
layouts
• Example: group technology &
manufacturing cells
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 Group Technology

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 Traditional Process Layout

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 Manufacturing Cells

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 Designing Process Layouts

• Gather information:
– Space needed, space available, importance of
proximity between various units
• Develop alternative block plans:
– Using trail-and-error or decision support tools
• Compare alternatives & choose a detailed
layout:

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 Comparing Alternatives

• Load-distance measures
– Load: # of trips, weight moved, $-value moved
– Distance: rectilinear distance (using north-south &
east-west movements)
• REL charts:
– Management opinion on strength of relationships
• Software tools:
– CRAFT: computerized relative allocation of
facilities technique
– ALDEP: automated layout design program
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 Designing Product Layouts

• Identify tasks & immediate predecessors

• Determine the desired output rate
• Calculate the necessary cycle time
• Compute the theoretical minimum number of
workstations
• Assign tasks to workstations
• Compute efficiency, idle time & balance delay

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 Cycle Time

• The amount of time each workstation is

allowed to complete its tasks
available time in seconds/day
Cycle time (seconds/unit) 
desired output in units/day
• Limited by the bottleneck task (the longest
task to be performed):
available time
Maximum output 
bottleneck task time

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 Theoretical Minimum
Number of Workstations
• TM = number of stations needed to achieve
100% efficiency (every second is used)

 task times 
TM 
cycle time
• Always round up (no partial workstations)
• Serves as a lower bound for our analysis

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 Assigning Tasks to Workstations

• Start at the first station & choose the longest

eligible task (tasks with no unassigned
predecessors)
• Continue adding the longest eligible task that
fits without going over the desired cycle time
• When no additional tasks can be added,
begin assigning tasks to the next workstation
• Continue until all tasks are assigned

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 Compute Efficiency
& Balance Delay

• Efficiency is the ratio of productive time

to total time:
 task times
Efficency %   100
number of stations cycle time
• Balance delay:
Balance delay %   100 - Efficency

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 Frozen Pizza Example

• Desired output is 60 pizzas/hour

– Cycle time is (3600 seconds/hour)/(60 units/hour)
– Cycle time = 60 seconds/unit
Task Description Predecessor Task Time
A Roll dough None 50
B Place on cardboard A 5
C Spread sauce B 25
D Sprinkle cheese C 15
E Add pepperoni D 12
F Add sausage D 10
G Add mushrooms D 15
H Shrink-wrap pizza E, F, & G 18
I Pack in box H 15
Total: 165

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 Assign Tasks

Workstation Eligible task Task Selected Task time Idle time

A A 50 10
1
B B 5 5
C C 25 35
2 D D 15 20
E, F, G G 15 5
E, F E 12 48
F F 10 38
3
H H 18 20
I I 15 5

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 Compute Efficiency

165
Efficiency  100  91.7%
360

Balance delay  100%  91.7%  8.3%

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 Other Considerations

• Shape of the line (S, U, O, L):

– Share resources, enhance communication
& visibility, impact location of loading &
unloading
• Paced versus unpaced lines
– Paced lines use an automatically enforced
cycle time
• Single or mixed-model lines
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 The End

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